Red Sky at night, sailor’s delight: N.S. launches Canada’s first cider appellation

Crystal Garrett raises a glass to “Red Sky,” a new Nova Scotia cider appellation.

The Nova Scotia Cider Association has launched Canada’s first cider appellation.

Dubbed “Red Sky,” the association says the cider celebrates the distinct flavours and characteristics of Nova Scotia’s world-class apples.

“An appellation really is about the area,” Poet Comeau, owner of Lake City Cider and president of the Nova Scotia Cider Association, explained during an interview on CTV Morning Live Tuesday.

“So really, when we are celebrating appellations and our ciders here, we’re talking about Nova Scotia in particular.”

All ciders must be made from 100 per cent Nova Scotia-grown apples in order to obtain the Red Sky designation.

“What it strives for is to say, this is a little bit of Nova Scotia in a glass,” Comeau said.

The Red Sky appellation is the first appellation to be recognized in North America. In order for a cider to be recognized as a Red Sky in Nova Scotia it has to meet certain standards.

“It has to go through a blind tasting of its peers, no one from the association or who owns, or produces can be on that tasting panel,” Comeau said.

The association partnered with Nova Scotia Community College’s food and hospitality program for the tastings.

“It really just creates a standard. So you can only have a certain amount of sugar, acid has to be in balance, it does need to be carbonated and filtered,” the Lake City Cider owner said.

The cooler nights and warmer days help to make the apples red to produce the Red Sky appellation, she said.

“We have this specific soil, we have this specific climate, we get the right weather, we get the right change in weather,” Comeau explained.

The association says the goal is for Nova Scotia cideries to produce Red Sky ciders that share similarities, but still have their own expressions depending on the different apples used.

“We want the different Red Skies to be more like siblings,” she said.

The Red Sky name is an ode to the weather proverb that suggests a red sky at night indicates good weather is coming, while a red sky in the morning signals bad weather. The association notes Nova Scotia’s cider history is rooted in its maritime heritage, from the arrival of apples and seeds via ships to the role of cider in supporting sailors and coastal trade.

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