Mojo Weho Marinade
This recipe comes to us from Diskin Cidery and uses thier WeHo dry hopped cider. Refrigerate chicken in this zippy marinade overnight. Then grill and put on a brioche slider with aioli and pickle...
Diskin Cider
Cider house rules: making authentic cider in the traditional manner
When Adam Diskin moved to Nashville nine years ago from the Pacific Northwest, there were 30 breweries in the area and not a single cidery. “I’m thinking, I went to school to [make cider], I love doing it, I give it to friends and family, and I’ll probably end up slitting my wrists if I don’t do this,” Adam says. Not only did Adam want to bring true craft cider to the South, he a wanted to focus on old world tradition and authenticity.
Naturally, with juice flowing through the building day after day, Adam realized how well cider lends itself to cooking, prompting delicious plates alongside his pints. “What we want to do with the food is show the versatility of cider. Our chef uses it for everything from bbq sauce to marinades.” Nashville cooks tag Diskin on Instagram regularly, showing off dishes like pork butt braised in Cinnamon Spice cider and sausages cooked in Bourbon Tart Cherry cider. With flavors in the works for the coming year like Habanero Asian Pear and Blueberry Lavender, you’ll want to get cooking. Here’s a couple ideas from Diskin to get you started.
With that, Adam and his good friend Todd Evans set out to make cider approachable for everyone during a time when the only cider around was the corporate (and overly sweet) offerings of Angry Orchard, Strongbow, and the like, opening Diskin Cider in the up and coming Wedgewood-Houston area in May of 2018.
“Along the way, we figured out that we want to make cider the [traditional] way, but we don’t want it to be hoity-toity like when you go to a lot of wineries and it’s not approachable. If you don’t know wine and you’re walking into a wine tasting for the first time it can be a little scary.”
He started with quality ingredients. “I wanted [our cider] to be stuff I wanted to drink. I wanted to know what I was putting in my body – making sure it wasn’t anything artificial – knowing that it was going to take longer to do it. We only use fresh-pressed juice in everything we do.” There’s no fermented reconstituted concentrate here. And since Nashville isn’t in an apple-growing region (though Adam has optimistically planted some cider apple trees native to the south in the front of Diskin’s building), Diskin’s own blend of apple juice is pressed to order in Michigan and is in his fermentation tanks within 1-2 days.
Diskin’s best seller (and one true to their mission) is their dry, traditional English style cider called Bob’s Your Uncle, just like you’d get in a pub. “A lot of people come in and say, ‘I don’t like cider because it’s too sweet.’ So, we say, ‘You’re just not drinking real cider.’ If any of our products ever taste like a Jolly Rancher, we’re doing something wrong.”
In addition to their flagship ciders, don’t miss out on their rotating seasonals. The Local AF, a Blackberry Vanilla Port is my favorite, but Pomegranate Honey is coming this fall and sure to be a big hit.
Related Stories & Recipes
Resolution BBQ Sauce
At the Diskin cidery, this bbq sauce made with Resolution, their fall seasonal cinnamon spice cider, is served with smoked cider-braised pork on nachos along with bacon fat refried beans, poblan...
Cider Marinated Pork Loin
Grass-fed, free range, pork from Katharos Farm was the the entree at our Fall Farm Dinner. We used local Diskin Cider to marinate the pork, but you can use apple cider as well. Chef Stephen Miller of ...
