I have a LOT to tell you about the day we embarked on a day trip to yantzied for the MMHS AGM. After the meeting, we went to see a new-to-me cemetery (a wild one!), and then made a beeline for Dead Horse Cider.
I’ve written about this cidery before. But that was back before they’d opened up an actual taproom you could visit. So, here I am, writing about them again four years later.
Funny thing about 2019, that was the year Andrew and I went to California for a little vacation and visited some wineries. Now visiting Dead Horse Cider in person, the first thing I said was that it reminded me of California. And then I heard myself and thought wow, that’s a really Manitoba thing to say.
But then once we were seated inside and eating and drinking quite heartily, we got to chatting with Matthew Zacharias, one of the owners of Dead Horse Cider. He said a lot of awesome things, none of which I remember. I felt stressed out about not taking notes and instead focused on just enjoying sitting there sipping away as he and Andrew chatted, while I essentially eavesdropped.
I’ll tell you one thing I remember — that Matthew said he had left Manitoba and moved to California for… I think he said maybe about a decade, where he became a sommelier at a winery. He absolutely knows what he’s doing and that is all very obvious when you visit Dead Horse Cider.
He also said that he feels Manitoba has a ton of beauty and talent and value to offer the world, and there are world class artists everywhere here, and he wants to elevate them. That’s where the Artist Series came from. A way of getting local artists in front of more people. Attaching their artistry to a bottle of very fine cider, crafted right here.
Matthew said a lot about this and I regretted not recording it, because it was all very spot-on, in my opinion. Seeing the value and beauty here and putting it in front of more people.
The taproom is beautiful and it’s so exciting to me to be in space where there are so many different ciders on tap. There are several that you cannot get anywhere else but at the cidery, and that’s very fun to me. (I had two different ones that day, and both were fantastic!) I’ve also picked up one of their limited edition ciders at the St. Norbert Farmer’s Market, so finding them at markets is a great idea too.
As you can see from the pictures, the apple grove was still in a state of emergence when we visited and the grass was not yet green, so of course we will be returning!
Learn more about Dead Horse Cider, here.