Wisconsin's First Cider Pub!

They say you should never open a restaurant in winter. Well, we did it anyway. And we happened to choose the week of a blizzard, followed by a polar vortex with wind chills of -54, followed by rain and incredibly dense fog. And believe it or not, many hardy Wisconsin souls still passed through our doors and entered the state’s first cider pub.

Above: The Mount Horeb troll paid a visit and gave us two thumbs up!

Some may argue that Island Orchard in Door County opened the state’s first cider pub since they do have some snacks available, but with all due respect to our friends on the peninsula (who also make good cider by the way), our place has a proper kitchen where we are serving up delicious farm to table food. We are therefore more of a true pub.

Our culinary team is whipping up some amazing stuff. Try the house-made ricotta dip served with house-made crostini, house-made carrot jam, local honey, and sliced scallions for an appetizer. Then try one of our house made sausages - yes, we make those in house too! Flavors and styles will regularly change to keep things interesting. The pork comes from our friend April at Dorothy’s Range in Blanchardville. If you’re lucky, you might meet April when you stop in since she’s bartending with us a couple days a week.

Above: Housemade sausage fresh from the kitchen

If you like your sausage spicy, choose the maple hot link, because it actually is spicy. Bergere, the guy who does much of the sausage making, also grew the hot peppers and harvested the maple syrup. Or if you’re vegetarian, we have tasty options for you, and we have one of our hard working vegetable growers, Sarah from Squashington Farm, helping out at the bar from time to time as well. We even source local flour, and Halee from Meadowlark Organics baked our first carrot cake with her own flour grown nearby in Ridgeway.

If you didn’t notice, we’re trying to raise the bar on farm to table food. Sourcing from local growers is a core value of our cider business, and we’ve chose to apply that value to our food as well. In creating a “cider pub,” we believe it is important for all of our products not just to be locally made but also to be locally grown.