Today we are talking with RACEHL BOLONGARO the co-owner of the Fraser Valley’s firs full production cidery. Your accent (British) belies you are not originally from these parts.How did your travels bring you to the Langley area? Faced with a move to London that we really weren’t looking forward to, we opened a copy of Yachting World one day, saw a picture of Desolation Sound and said “lets go there instead! Three months later our landed immigrant cards had arrived, we’d sold our house, the dog got put in a travel crate and we were on a flight to Vancouver.

There is a huge craft cider scene in Portland and Seattle and it seems to be tracking up the West Coast - similar to the surge in craft beer 5 years ago.

I’d been an engineer for 20 years and although I enjoyed the hands on aspect of it, I was being increasingly channeled into more administrative tasks as my career progressed.

Plus I felt that sitting at a desk all day was slowly killing me!

I looked forward to the next 20 years and couldn’t see myself doing more of the same.

Instead I made a list of what I enjoyed, batch production (in my past as a chemical engineer I made pharmaceuticals!

), growing things in my garden, creating things and home winemaking and brewing.

I visited some cideries on Vancouver Island, really enjoyed the experience and saw a gap on the Mainland for a similar “back to the orchard experience”. It was an amazing week long experience with 20 other cider makers - both novice and professional.

The course was taught by an instructor from the UK who is himself an award winning cider maker. By 10am the atmosphere in the room was very convivial!

We did a course of lectures that covered all aspects of the cider making process, talked about business and marketing, how to set up a production facility and everything we would need to know.

This was supplemented by laboratory work and practical cider making - we all came home with a jug of cider - and workshops on orchard management.

It was the most fun I’ve ever had on an educational course (some of the engineering ones can be a bit dry! Bone Dry, House Cider, Rosy, Elderflower and Honey.

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