Justin Fox Burks
Long Road Cider Company, operated by Dez and Clay Patterson, Jamarvis Thomas, and Scott Patterson (pictured above right) is located in historic Barretville, the birthplace of Memphis bluesman Bobby Blue Bland.
The drive north on Route 14 to the Long Road Cider Company is not a long ride at all, although the cidery’s name springs from the commute between Midtown and Barretville, a historic Shelby County town tucked outside Rosemark, near the Tipton County line.
For me, the 30-minute ride to Tennessee’s first cidery and café — beyond Singleton Parkway, over the Loosahatchie River, and past the last Dollar General store — is both respite and destination, an homage to a countryside gem that marries millennial entrepreneurship with the birthplace of a Memphis music icon. Here the fields open up, and I am so captivated by the strong white oaks in the late winter sun that
I almost miss the little red sign telling us to turn left and then right onto Barret Road.
First, I see a barn painted by time, and then a resident peacock with a stunning train of big-eyed feathers, but it’s the historical marker planted just past the Barret homestead that makes me yell, “Stop the car.” I jump out (this is hallowed ground for my husband and me) to read how an 11-year-old Bobby Blue Bland, born in Barretville in 1930, earned 50 cents a song singing for mule-drawn wagon drivers at the Barret Cotton gin, once the largest cotton gin in western Tennessee.
These days, the gin’s foundation, littered with black walnuts from a nearby tree, is an outdoor mini-museum for vintage farm equipment. Still, I don’t linger because a clapboard building, founded as the J.H. Barret & Son General Store in 1856, pulls me across the street to a sprawling front porch and the premise of my story: Long Road Cider Company, a startup so heartfelt that I have to settle into the bar for a few minutes to take in the unpolished linoleum and the calico cupboard curtains and the warm smell of étouffée.
“Hi,” Dez Patterson calls out from her countertop perch, where she updates a hand-lettered menu of hard apple ciders on tap, aged in bourbon barrels in the room next door. “I’ll be right down.”
For newcomers like us, Patterson’s animated description of what we will be tasting is both appreciated and informative. Cider maker Scott Patterson and his brother, Clay, who are prepping dinner in the kitchen, join in the conversation. The trio is a charming tag team, asking if we like sweet or sour, robust beverages or something light, in the manner of sommeliers.
We have lots of drink options (house-made sangria, cider cocktails, Shiner beer on tap), but settle on cider flights, four-ounce pours of hearty ciders that taste like bourbon or ginger, along with more winsome mixtures like Loomiamiana, made with loomi (dried limes) and Damiana tea (a much touted aphrodisiac).
Now, honestly. Who knew drinking cider could be so much fun?
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Scott Patterson and Jamarvis Thomas transfer cider from one oak barrel to the next
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Bruschetta with herbed tomato and balsamic reduction pairs up with cider flights at Long Road Cider Company.
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Clay Patterson waits on Atoka residents Joe and Christine Cina
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Certainly, Dez and Clay Patterson did, when the couple relocated from Arizona to Memphis to help open Long Road Cider Company in early December, a business four years in the making after Scott jumped from craft beer hobbyist to professional cider-maker. A visit to San Sebastian, Spain, where locals drink non-carbonated cider directly from barrels in a celebration called Txotx, spurred him on.
“In Spain, they take the fruit, they press the juice, they put the juice in barrels, and they do very little else for six months to a year,” Scott explains. “It’s tart and funky, and I couldn’t believe cider could taste like that.”
Back home, Scott got hooked on the science of cider-making, winning a gold medal at the Tennessee State Fair and a silver at the prestigious Franklin County Cider Days event in Massachusetts. He liked to experiment with wild and cultured yeasts for fermentation and fruits and sweeteners for taste and flavor.
Walk alongside the three rows of barrels in the cidery’s temperature-controlled production room, and the description of cider ingredients reads like a cornucopia from Goddess Pomona’s garden: cherries, peaches, apricots, blackberries, figs, honey, vanilla beans, Blackstrap molasses, locally foraged persimmons, and apples of all kinds, including Mutsu, Winesap, and Arkansas Black.
Sourcing local apples for his cider operation is a challenge, says Scott, who gets some supply from Jones Orchard in nearby Millington. Typically, he blends juice he crushes in-house with apple juice he buys from a co-op in Ohio.
Fermenting cider in 53-gallon oak barrels from bourbon makers like Heaven Hill requires even more finesse because of the barrels’ heavy toast. “They are actually charred inside, so you get the flavor of the bourbon, but you also get the harshness,” Scott explains. To compensate, he ferments cider first in fresh barrels and then siphons the batch into a second barrel. After three batches, the barrels produce a more neutral taste. “We stand alone somewhat even in the cider world in that we are fusing traditional production techniques with some very unconventional recipes and on a small scale,” Scott explains.
Experimentation is key to the burgeoning craft cider industry, which is developing along a similar trajectory as craft beer, says cider expert and educator Eric West, who organizes the Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the largest competition in the world. West also tracks small craft producers with an interactive map of cidery locations in the United States. “Five years ago, when the industry was just getting started, there were maybe 125 companies. Now there are easily 600 to 700,” he says.
Despite the robust growth of craft producers, especially in urban and apple-producing areas, hard cider in America still occupies an uneven middle ground between beer, which is made from grains, and wine, which is made from fruit. Education helps, West says: “It’s the small producers like Long Road Cider who are helping cider build its own identity, who are educating people to have an open mind, so they can recognize that cider is a beverage of its own.”
Scott Patterson agrees. He tries to teach customers that environmental factors like weather and soil composition impact the taste and complexity of cider, regardless of the recipe. “We can try to replicate ciders, but it doesn’t always work,” he says. “There’s going to be some fluctuation between batches, but that’s part of the fun.”
We couldn’t agree more, and with alcohol percentages hovering around 6 percent, the ciders we try have a modest but happy kick that pairs seamlessly with the café’s food: Andouille sausage and onion stewed in cider; chicken Gorgonzola pot pie baked inside a pastry pocket; cornbread and southern greens served in a pale blue cup; and an evolving menu of weekend specials like neck bones, French onion soup, and house-made ice cream.
Clay credits Scott with the menu (“I just make sure he has clean dishes,” he says) and describes the cidery’s simple approach to food like this: “We want food that complements the environment, that is good and easy to prepare and warming to the soul.”
For Joe and Christine Cina, who live in nearby Atoka, the cidery is a welcome change from the area’s more typical fast-food restaurants. “We are blown away by this place,” Joe Cina says. “The cider is excellent, and you can’t find anything like it nearby. We are coming back tomorrow, and I am bringing my growler.”
(Editor’s note: Long Road Cider Company is open Thursday and Friday from 4 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 9 p.m. The company’s hard ciders are sold on tap in Memphis at Joe’s Liquors, Miss Cordelia’s, Cashsaver, Flying Saucer, Bounty on Broad, the Rec Room, Lucchesi’s Beer Garden, and Cheers Wines and Spirits in Collierville. Hot spice cider is sold at Curb Market in Midtown. Bottled cider is limited, but production will increase over the coming months.)
