#TCECiderMob with Raging Cider and Mead Co!
About a week ago, we had the hard job of picking the first winner of the #TCECiderMob from a group of cideries that the TCE admins truly consider friends. All make great cider, and are more than worthy to be the first in a series that we get to help, and literally put our money where our mouth is as cider fans and supporters. To be fair to all, we let a roll of the die determine the winner, and Raging Cider & Mead Co. of San Diego, CA was the first up! The most important thing to note about Dave Carr and the Raging family, is just that, family. From making and crafting ciders, meads, and plum jerkums together, running the tasting room, orcharding, and more, it’s a family affair. In getting to know them over the last few years, and accepting the TCE! family in many ways as their own, we couldn’t be more excited for them. Go get your order in, and share in that family spirit in more ways than one. -TCE! Admins
TCE! Admins: It’s hard to believe that it’s been just over a year since we last interviewed you as part of #SupportCider campaign at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (read our first interview with Dave here). How has the last year been for Raging and you?
Dave Carr: It’s been a mixed bag. We’ve increased our presence on a national level which definitely helped us survive through the early pandemic period; but, we were not really prepared and had to invest a lot of capital into equipment and packaging that we had not planned on. Sales have been ok; but, beyond an early burst of shipping, those sales have dropped. Tasting room sales were ok at times; but, overall down for most of the pandemic. The shut down in December & January to to-go sales only was almost a knockout punch for us. With the recent local relaxation of restrictions, we have had intermittent good weekends & slow weekends in the tasting room, which have been just enough to survive
TCE!: Raging is the inaugural winner of our new #TCECiderMob project, which continues our goal of helping raise independent cideries profile and put together a “cider mob” with a burst of sales. What made you want to apply for this new project?
Dave: First off we wanted to figure out how to reach more people as customers to hopefully offset much of the investment we made last year. In addition, recently my son Travis, who is a partner, along with my daughter Sierra, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer a couple months ago. Beyond eliminating his help in the cidery, we’re investing any spare funds we have personally into helping him fight this as well as having to increase employee costs to offset the loss of his help in the cidery.
TCE!: Tell us about your ciders that you’re offering as part of the project.
Dave: Currently, we are offering everything we have available to ship. It includes a range of ciders, perrys, plum jerkums, and meads from dry to sweet that should appeal to different people’s palates. Everything we make is sourced 100% within San Diego County from local orchards, vineyards, farms, and bee hives.
TCE!: Something we never really touched upon in our previous interview is that not only do you produce cider, but mead and plum jerkum as well. Tell us about that side of Raging. Any recommendations on ones to try for beginners?
Dave: We currently offer for shipping a rum-barrel aged off-dry plum jerkum (Rumpleplumskin) which is a lightly petillant blend of various plums with a little apple blended to soften the acidity as well as a single-varietal Santa Rosa Plum Jerkum which has racy, intense acidity and plumminess (Is that a word?). We are offering three meads online currently, Special Cyser, a coferment of late season heirloom apples and wildflower honey aged in a bourbon barrel, Bees ‘N Vines, a pyment coferment of merlot grapes and wildflower honey, and Transmutation, a sweet wildflower honey mead aged in amaranth rye whiskey barrels (think notes of coffee, chicory, and dark chocolate). All three of our meads are on the sweet side, though the tannins in Bees ‘N Vines makes it perceptively seem less sweet).
TCE!: You’re hosting an amazing looking food and cider pairing on June 27th with The Good Seed Food Company, and we’ve been told you’re a bit foodie yourself. Any recommendations on pairing your ciders and meads with food? Any recipes you care to share?
Dave: First off, I love sushi & poke and my go to pairing for these dishes is our 2019 Citripunk, it’s slightly funky citrusy acidity really pairs well and accentuates the flavors in these types of dishes. Our 2017 Peacefield Serenade is excellent with spicy seafood dishes. Our 2017 Northern Spy is excellent as a dessert pairing with it’s caramel notes. I don’t really have any recipes per se to share. I just really love food, haha.
TCE!: We’ve also been told that you dabble in other fermented side projects, as well as things like foraging, and even mycology (the study of fungi and mushrooms for folks who don’t know). Tell us about some of your fun side projects.
Dave: Well some of my side projects such as my interest in mycology naturally dovetails with our orcharding in that it helps me recognize fungal pathogens in the orchard as well as utilize edible fungi to breakdown woodchips and other organic matter to make food for our trees and for us. Also, we as a family will go foraging for mushrooms & plants just for the fun of identifying as well as for medicinal and food uses. Kerry, my wife, is excellent at plant identification as well as uses. Myself and our daughter Sierra are both huge mycophiles and she also is great at identifying insects (her day job is in the entomology lab at the county). I also enjoy fermenting foods. Prior to the founding the cidery, I had a huge interest in cheesemaking as well as fermenting various foods, kombuchas, and juns. One of my newer fun projects is our seedling project looking for new apples for cider and more that will grow in lower chill conditions plus grafting local wild and seedling apples that have proven themselves as good cider fruit… oh yeah, my daughter, son-in-law Cody, and myself are newly on the hunt for a seedling apple on Palomar Mountain that was popular at market in San Diego during the early 1900’s, it was called the Palomar Giant and is currently lost except for a reference in a book and someone’s recollection of throwing those apples at their friends when the were kids. Lastly, I still maintain my day job building custom stainless steel equipment for restaurants/breweries/wineries as well as fun decorative metals projects, while trying to build Raging and the local orchards.
TCE!: Is your tasting room currently open to the public? Tell us about what all you have going on and what you would recommend to first time visitors!
Dave: We are currently open, in fact the state of California has fully reopened as of June 15th. We are now offering more seating inside the tasting room but have not yet returned to bar seating and are waiting to see how things pan out. Honestly, we have had two tables open inside per prior guidelines which have hardly been used. Most customers choose to sit outside. Every other Sunday, we have an event with a small local bakery that specializes in sourdough breads, focacias, and so on. The event also includes and open mic section for locals to come up and play music plus a headlining act from 6-8. It will be interesting to see how business pans out as the summer heat turns up. I would recommend trying our taster flights (4 tasters to a flight) to get a feel for our offerings.
TCE!: Do you have anything fun in the pipeline that you can currently share?
Dave: We will have a three day shipping sale on July 3rd-5th of $15.00 flat rate shipping on 4 or more bottles which will include our latest release coming out that weekend. Our upcoming release was originally scheduled for late May but has been delayed due to Travis’s illness. It is now scheduled for July 3rd and includes our first true apple & grape coferment with 45% dry-farmed Viognier grapes & 55% early season apple varieties done as a disgorged pet-nat. It is a bright new flavor different from either cider or wine and perfect for the summer months. Our standard plum jerkum will also be released in a can for the first time, along with one other cider can release, three cider releases in bottle, and one mead. We have some other upcoming pet-nats and coferments later in the year as well as our 2018 West Coast Pommeau and another secret project we’re working on. Also, we are working on some more pairing events throughout the year and another sidra/pintxos event (it sold out and was praised by all who attended last year)
TCE!: Anything else you want to add?
Dave: Honestly, we’re not the type to ask for help; we self funded the cidery within the family. When this was announced I was at a low point and overwhelmed with the news on Travis. It has been a struggle since but we are honestly hoping things will pick up and hoping for good news on Travis’s health (he has done an amazing job of staying positive and radically changing his diet). We appreciate the opportunity to tell our story here which includes continuing to work with local orchards to keep more from being demolished by paying a fair price for their fruit. The end game is to make it worthwhile to the owners to continue to grow fruit, in addition to expanding and rehabilitating the orchards we manage. We are also still working with local farmers by providing an income stream on the ugly and over produced fruit they can not sell at market. Lastly, we are continuing our stated mission to introduce people to more traditional ciders, perrys, plum jerkums, and more, beyond the jumble of mass produced drinks available in the supermarkets.
Pick up the great ciders, meads, and jerkums that Dave talks about and more here! If you’re in or visiting SoCal, check out the Raging Cider & Mead Co. tasting room at 177 Newport Drive Suite B, San Marcos, CA 92069.
