Ocean meets orchard: This N.L. company is aging cider in the sea

A cidery in eastern Newfoundland is submerging its bubbly beverages beneath the waves for some additional flavour.

In 2024 the George’s Brook-Milton-based Newfoundland Cider Company first deposited 24 bottles into the Atlantic Ocean, calling the new line High Tide, and recently followed it up for a second year.

“It’s ocean on the outside and an orchard on the inside. It’s a real meeting of land and sea,” founder Chris Adams told CBC Radio’s The St. John’s Morning Show.

When the bottles are brought up to the surface, they’re covered in salt, sand, barnacles, algae and even aquatic life like sea stars — and he says signs of the bottles’ time under water is part of the appeal.

“The starfish and the little fish that live amongst the crate and everything, all those go back completely unharmed. My son makes sure that — he will not let me harm anything,” said Adams. 

But he said the algae and barnacles aren’t cleaned off the bottles, as they’re all a part of the experience of tasting High Tide.

Adams said the cidery uses wild apples and wild yeast in their cider and they wanted to take it a step further and had heard of wineries aging their wines at sea.

“I figured, you know what? If they could do it with wine, we could do it here in Newfoundland with our cider,” he said.

When the submerged cider is opened, he said it’s a different experience from a typical cider due to the additional smell of the sea.

“It is a little bit different, but still it’s very much a proper apple cider,” said Adams.

Aging cider in water is similar to the effect of aging the beverage in a cellar, with the temperature staying pretty consistent in the ocean.

However, Adams said the process to get the cider down into the water can pose challenges.

“That’s pretty tricky. We’ve been using milk crates and sealing them up and then just going out in [a] boat and dropping them overboard basically. And that’s about it — and hope for the best.”

‘Bit of a mystery’

Jean-Benoit Deslauriers is the head wine maker with Nova Scotia-based Benjamin Bridge, which has been ocean-aging wine for several years. He said how underwater aging impacts alcoholic beverages is a “little bit of a mystery.”

But he said there are a few reasons why it could provide favourable conditions for alcoholic beverages.

“One of the enemies of aging is the variation in temperatures,” he said.

Being underwater can mean consistent, cooler temperatures than a wine being left out in a wine rack in a kitchen, said Deslauriers, as fluctuation in temperatures hurts quality of wine.

“There’s also another extraordinary advantage in aging underwater, meaning it’s a dark place with no ultraviolet light,” said Deslauriers.

Ultraviolet rays hitting beverages in glass bottles, like in the case of some beers, can cause what is called “skunkiness,” which is when light causes a chemical change in beer. Being underwater can prevent that damage.

Adams said when the Newfoundland Cider Company first decided to experiment with aging their cider with help from the ocean, he didn’t know what to expect.

While the first batch was a success, he said the most recent attempt didn’t go as smoothly. There have been more storms than usual, so when they pulled up the second batch of High Tide from the water, he was disappointed to see most of the bottles had been destroyed.

At the time, Adams said his heart sank but he wants to try it again because the first batch turned out so well.

He said next time they will choose a calmer area of sea and use an anchor attached to the crate to stop the crate from being buffeted about by the currents.

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