On Saturday, June 17, Twin Star Orchards, home of the Brooklyn Cider House in New Paltz, will be hosting the second annualFermentation Festival, after their first successful event last summer. In addition to the fermentation event, there will be live music from 12pm to 5:30pm, as well as some of the orchard’s signature fares. Attendees will experience a day of interactive learning, good eats, creative drinks, and upbeat music in a beautiful Hudson Valley setting.
The 210-acre, dog-friendly orchard, which Brooklyn Cider House purchased in 2015 to serve as a site for apple cultivation and a tasting room, is a sprawling, bucolic property with wide-open vistas, a scenic pond, and a farm store. Bring the dogs and the kids and take a stroll through the apple trees, while smelling the aromas of hardwood smoked barbecue, wood-fired pizza, and grilled burgers, all being served at the Fermentation Festival. Attendees will also get to experience the hard ciders that are produced on-property, as well as wines, spirits, and cheeses in the tasting room.
A Bubbly Event
Fermented foods live at the tasty intersection of the culinary arts, science, and gut health. Like any proper festival that celebrates this millennia-old and culture-wide practice, the Fermentation Festival at Twin Star Orchards will include opportunities to taste fermented products—both food and beverage—from over 30 different curators, take hands-on workshops, and learn about the process, science, and history of fermented foods through seminars.
The market sessions, running from 1pm to 3pm and 3:30pm to 5:30pm, will showcase several local vendors. Breweries and distilleries such as Cooper’s Daughter Spirits, Hudson North Cider Co, Taconic Distillery, Calmbucha and Rose Hill Winery will be there to quench your thirst with locally crafted products both alcoholic and non. Kimchee Harvest, Fruition Chocolate Works, Hawthorne Foods and La Salumina are on the roster for any artisanal eats.
If you’re more interested in deep-diving the fermentation learning process, there will be three seminars and four workshops, all hosted by a variety of industry experts, including self-taught fermentation guru and James Beard award-winning author Sandor Katz. Katz’s free 3pm seminar, “Fermentation as a Global Phenomenon,” will speak to the importance of fermentation across the globe and how fermentation can be used as a resource.
Other seminar speakers and topics include Alice Jun, founder of Hana Makgeolli, speaking about Korean rice wine brewing at 1pm, and Peter Yi, co-founder and cider maker at the Brooklyn Cider House, speaking at 4pm. Don’t miss out on Yi’s sneak peek of his Manchurian crabapple cider!
The workshops offer participants a hands-on approach to fermentation, starting at 12pm with Kim Jiyeon, a third generation kimchi maker, sharing her kimchi secrets and samples. If you’re interested in returning home with a jar of your own seasonal fermented veggies, check out Katz’s 1:30pm workshop, where he will teach participants about the fermentation of vegetables based on the season. Jeff Kim, chef at New York City restaurant Nudibranch, will host a 3:30pm workshop, allowing attendees to craft their own ricotta from fresh local milk. The 5pm workshop, Kombucha making with Phaedra Robinson, will walk participants through creating their own kombucha, and each participant will return home with a 64-ounce make-your-own kit.
Tickets to the seminars, workshops, and market sessions can be purchased here. Seminars will be $25 each and workshops will be $35-$45, both with limited space and granting ticket holders discounted admissions to the market sessions.
A portion of ticket proceeds will be donated to the Phillies Bridge Farm Project, a local nonprofit farm that works to promote sustainable agriculture locally, provide communities with organically grown herbs and vegetables, educate communities about healthy food and nature, all while sharing their harvests with those in need.
This Father's Day weekend, be sure to take a trip to Twin Star Orchards and taste the traditions of fermentation with a variety of beers, wines, and ciders; cured meats; chocolate; and pickled foods, or give the gift of VIP access to the markets, including early entry, a Fermentation Festival tote bag, hat, and tasting glass.
