Spirited move by Highbank Farm
Unusually, Rod, you grow organic apples in Ireland. Is that the main crop on site?
Well, we have 55 acres, 20 acres are in apples. On the rest we grow tillage, porridge oats for Flahavans, and we have some horses.
There are 14 beehives in the centre of the farm too.
We leave about 5% of the land to wildlife. We like having the wildlife, the natural element, but we now know it’s incredibly important for an organic farm. You need trees, or other elements will suffer, the fungi in the soil, the birds, bees and other insects. You need a mix, so a more agro-forestry approach is important. It’s not just trees in the orchard, it’s trees round about.
I’ve been organic since the mid 1990s, and I feel I’m getting better at growing this way. So I’ve another five or six acres of apples due to come on soon. We have seven cider varieties here.
What do you produce from this?
We are trying to develop this idea of the orchard as Ireland’s answer to a vineyard. We’re always trying to discover apt, Irish twists to put on things.
Production is fairly diversified. There’s a juice, a syrup and a range of ciders. Our main cider is extremely dry, so we also produce a sweet cider, which we add an organic honey to.
My mother always said, when giving us a slice of apple with a slice of cheese, that an apple without cheese was like a hug without a squeeze.
So a third of our cider is aimed at the cheese market, we call it our dessert cider — it’s to accompany a cheese board. It’s not for glugging, as you would a pint of cider on a hot day. This is a small, chilled, 330ml bottle, to be shared over cheese.
In Ireland, we should be doing innovative things, we shouldn’t be copying the French or whoever, we can get pointers from them, but why copy them? We should be taking advantage of the wonderful stuff we are growing and think of innovative ways of using it.
As well as what you call a driver’s cider, one with no alcohol, you have gone to the other extreme. Tell me about what you do with that incredible looking Albert Holstein still you imported from Germany.
Well, we had to complete the circle, diversification is good, as we don’t have to try to compete with the industrial ciders.
We produce loads of apples with blemishes on them. So people wouldn’t buy them to eat in the shop, as they aren’t pretty. But I’m not interested in pretty I’m interested in processing the apples. Microorganisms live in a symbiotic relationship with the tree, the soil and each other. Once they are balanced, and haven’t been sprayed, haven’t been messed with, everything will thrive. It’s not in any parasite’s interest to destroy its host. But of course, the apples are often blemished, due to weather and the lack of spraying.
So, to deal with surplus cider, we bought a small still, with 253 litres capacity.
We’re producing specifically Irish versions of drinks. There’s Highbank Organic Apple Schnapps, straight off the still, no sweetening or additives, it’s a clear spirit at 40% abv. We also now produce Highbank Organic Orchard Spirit, with our syrup in it, also Orchard Liqueur. We’ll have an apple gin by February.
The great thing is we can produce based on demand and need. All the spirits start from the same point, a beautiful clear schnapps.
