- Welcome to North Carolina Weekend.
I'm Deborah Holt Noel.
Labor Day weekend means apples in western North Carolina.
You have the big North Carolina Apple Festival
in Hendersonville of course.
But these days, apples also means locally-sourced fruit
and even craft ciders.
[twangy guitar music]
- My name is Leslie Lancaster.
My husband, Pat and I met in 1991.
He had just inherited
the property that Grandad sits on now.
It was an old farmstead from his grandad.
That's where we got the name from, Grandad's Apples.
- [Narrator] Grandad's, and many other apple operations
along Chimney Rock Road in Henderson County,
have been around for generations.
The first apple trees were already growing here
in the 18th century.
But over the past 20 years,
the industry in Henderson County has grown tremendously.
Agritourism is a big reason why.
Consumers are more closely connecting to the farms
where the apples grow.
- You could definitely see the trend
10 years ago, when the big buy local came out.
We did have a lot more customers
interested in the fact that you could buy your produce
right next door.
Fresh makes a huge difference.
- [Narrator] The North Carolina Apple Festival
puts hundreds of thousands of folks into the midst
of Hendersonville's apple industry every year.
But the apple farms continue to grow and sell their fruit
and related products for months after the festival.
- [Leslie] You Pick is generally popular
with the younger families.
They all wanna go out and pick their own apples
for the experience.
A lot of the older folks will just mix and match
from the bins that we have pre-picked.
And then the cider is up and coming.
Last year, our cider was so delicious
that we kept running out.
- [Narrator] This year, thanks to some new technology,
Grandad's will be capable of faster cider production.
And the farm is branching out into hard cider,
a new and potentially game changing aspect
of the apple industry in this county.
Two relatively new cideries now call Henderson County home.
One is Flat Rock Ciderworks on Main Street
in Hendersonville.
- Yeah, we're tree to the tap.
I mean, we grow our own apples.
We're an artisan cider, we're not mass produced.
We make 'em with fresh squeezed juice.
And we do things a little bit different.
We were the first hard cider from Henderson County
to go to market.
- [Narrator] That was in 2013.
Since then, Bold Rock Hard Cider has opened a taproom
in Mills River to go along with
its headquarters in Virginia.
Bold Rock uses apples from Virginia and North Carolina.
They're a larger, more established brand,
but they also boast of a quality over quantity mantra.
- [Lindsay] We stay true to our values of high quality,
locally sourced apples.
We love the fact that there's other folks
producing high quality craft cider in the area.
- They were expanding really quickly.
And decided they wanted to open another location.
They could've gone anywhere in the country.
They said, well let's go where the apples are coming from.
So they moved down here to Hendersonville.
And within a year, the Hendersonville location
has surpassed production of the first location.
- Well this location, I would say we're probably gonna be
somewhere in the 400,000 case equivalent plus range.
And as a company,
we're shooting for 800,000 case equivalence this year.
Which that'll make us the largest craft cider brand
in the country.
- [Narrator] As the competition for Henderson County's
young hard cider market intensifies,
it mirrors that of the local apple growers in many ways.
More quality has brought more attention
and larger audiences.
It has also fostered a
supportive network among neighbors.
- We grew up with these people.
We went to kindergarten with 'em,
we went to high school with 'em,
we go to church with 'em.
Everybody is friendly.
Everybody tries to help their neighbors.
If I have something that they don't have,
they send 'em to me and vice versa.
I mean, we want to share in the wealth around here.
- The North Carolina Apple Festival
runs the entire Labor Day weekend
in downtown Hendersonville.
You can find Grandad's Apples at 2951 Chimney Rock Road
in Hendersonville.
And you can check out their website at grandadsapples.com.
Flat Rock Ciderworks is at 305 North Main Street
in Hendersonville,
and their tasting room is open Wednesday through Sunday.
Bold Rock Hard Cider is at 72 School House Road
in Mills River, and their tasting room is open every day.