Uncommon Crop Cider - Wild Bergamont

About

Wild Bergamont, also known as Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa) is a wildflower in the mint family. A little bit of an oddball in our project where we mostly tested fruit, Wild Bergamot appealed to us because it’s easy to find and harvest. It grows in abundance in Southwest Wisconsin. The tops look like little pom poms that range from whitish to more pink or lavender. It has some minty and subtle citrusy aromas.

Harvesting Wild Bergamont

Wild Bergamot is easy to find when it’s in bloom, and it can be found in open woods, fields, ditches, and forest edges where it is sometimes quite abundant. It doesn’t take long to pick a bucketful, snipping off the tops with a scissors.

Making the Cider

For this cider, we simply steeped the flowers directly in the cider after primary fermentation. We pulled them out after 10 days.

Tasting the Cider

While this cider had a few dedicated fans who loved it, most folks weren’t particularly fond of it. It had a strong, herbal, planty aroma. Some of the hints of mint, citrus, and floral notes that we were hoping for were indeed there, but they were overpowered by an herbaceous, lawn-like aroma and flavor. It had a slightly bitter aftertaste. In our consumer tasting survey it scored a 5 out of 10 making it the lowest scoring of all of the ciders we made for this project.

Conclusions

While the batch of cider that we made for this project wasn’t a hit, we wouldn’t say that wild bergamont is completely hopeless. It’s possible that in lower quantities it would have been more desirable, or perhaps there are alternative ways of processing it that can pull out more of its desirable qualities and less of the undesirable ones. It’s also possible that it could be used in conjunction with something else to hit a pleasing flavor profile.