The Apple Club Newsletter

Winter 2024

Welcome to our annual newsletter. Happy Christmas to all our customers and friends, and best wishes for a healthy and rewarding 2025. Many thanks for your support this year and through the years. Take it easy over the holiday period if you can. I think we all deserve a break.

Apple brandy

In most parts of the World, when brandy is made, it’s made by distilling wine. However, the word brandy encompasses the distillate of other fruits also, including apples.
In France, distilled apple spirit is known as Calvados, and this product is aged in wooden casks for a minimum of two years (which gives it body and smoothens the flavours)
Also in France, fresh apple spirit, without aging, is call eau de vie (water of life), and of course in Ireland uisce beatha also translates as the same, though the word is taken to mean whiskey here.
For many years we’ve been tempted to try making an apple brandy, but lacked the skills and the equipment. Luckily, about a decade ago Jennifer Nickerson and Liam Ahern, near neighbours of ours, opened a distillery, with the aim of making whiskey. The story of their farm, on-site distillery, whiskey, and other drinks is a very interesting one, but not for telling today. Suffice it to say that in 2020, we decided to engage in a joint venture with Jennifer, to make an apple brandy.
The process of making apple brandy begins with the apple. The first step is to extract the juice from the apples, which we do with our apple press. After that we ferment the juice, just like when we make cider. There are various ways to make a cider, but ours is simple, in as much as we just allow a wild yeast fermentation to take hold in the juice, and leave it to its own devices. Once the cider is finished, it usually ends up at about 6.5% alcohol, and at that point, it’s ready for distillation.
The cider is brought the few kilometres distance to The Tipperary Distillery, where Jennifer takes over. She distills it twice to bring it up to about 65% alcohol, which reduces the volume of a 1000 litre tank of cider to 100 litres of apple spirit. At this point the apple spirit is clear, like a gin.
To make it a brandy it needs to be aged, and this is done by putting it in a cask for several years. Selecting the right cask is an important step, as it is the wood, and whatever the cask held before, that imparts flavours.
The casks we used are from Portugal, and would previously have held Oloroso Sherry and Port for many years. They are oak casks, which have soaked in some of the colours and flavours from their Portuguese contents, and now release back some of those into the apple spirit.
The casks are held in bond for three years, with the flavour of the brandy slowly changing, and the natural evaporation through the wood of the cask concentrating the flavours.
The final step is bottling, which involves selecting a finished cask, and bottling it into spirit bottles, a task which Jennifer undertook. The strength is brought down from 65% alcohol to 46% for bottling, as it’s nicely balanced at that strength.
Our first cask yielded just over 500 bottles, so it is a very “limited edition”.
We named our apple Brandy “The 80”, because it takes about 80 apples to make one (half litre) bottle. Keep an eye out for it!

How secure is the Irish voting system?

Since the recent election, I’ve heard some people asking this question. Based on my observations of the system in operation over many years, I’d say very secure and transparent.

Before the election:

1. You apply to be added to the register of electors.
2. Your application is checked to ensure you are entitled to vote.
3. You are assigned a polling station based on your address.

On the day of the election:

4. Before the polls open, officials show sealed packets with register, ballot papers, seal/punch (etc.) to the candidates observers. The number of blank ballot papers for each station is written in the ballot paper account.
5. You attend your appointed polling station, provide identification if asked for by the presiding officer (a % of voters must be asked for this, and a personation agent, if present, can also ask the presiding officer to validate identification). Your name is crossed off the list of all valid voters once you are given the ballot paper.
6. There are (at least) two officers in attendance to prevent any collusion between the polling station staff and a voter.
7. The ballot paper given to you is endorsed with a stamp which punches it to validate it as authentic.
8. You mark your preference in private. You can do this with the pencil provided, or with a pen or indelible marker you bring yourself.
9. You put it into the ballot box yourself without inspection or interference.
10. At the end of polling, the ballot box is closed and sealed by the attendants. The book with ballot papers is separated into two parts; one with the stubs from issued papers and one with unused ballot papers, with stubs still attached. The numbers of each are counted and written on the ballot account. The number of issued ballots must be the same as the number of people who voted. The stubs and unused ballots are put into separate packs and sealed (with information on the outside of the pack to identify them).
11. The ballot box is moved to the count centre by the Gardai.
12. The count centre is monitored and secured until the day of the count (usually the following day).

On the day of counting:

13. An identified box from each polling station is opened in public view, and all ballots poured out onto a table. The papers are unfolded face-up in front of the observers. There is no way to tell which voter filled out which ballot, so this is totally anonymous (the serial number of each paper is printed on the back).
14. Ballots are checked to ensure they have the endorsement mark (only endorsed ballots will be counted).
15. The number of papers that the count officials find in the box is recorded and compared with the ballot account that was completed and signed by the presiding officer at the polling station.
16. Votes are separated by counting staff in public view into their first preference piles.
17. Simultaneously votes are carefully scrutinised by tally people (from all political parties and independents) from a short distance away while this is happening. Tally people keep a rough count of votes (plus or minus 1% typically) without ever touching or interfering with the votes or the counting process.
18. Once the 1st preference votes are counted this must match the total number of people who turned up to vote as per the lists in each polling station.
19. The count proceeds in full public view at all times.
20. The quota (number of votes required to be elected) is decided by a simple pre-ordained system, calculated based on the number of seats in the constituency and the number of votes cast.
21. If a candidate is elected on the 1st count, their surplus is distributed in exact proportion to the number 2 votes selected by those who gave that candidate a No.1 preference.
22. If a candidate is eliminated (in any count) their votes are distributed according to the next preference as selected by the voter.
23. As each count progresses, the total number of ballots needs to continue to match the number of votes cast (including non-transferable votes).
24. You can only be elected if you reach the quota, or are the only candidate remaining once the last remaining candidate with fewer votes than you is eliminated.
25. If there is any dispute, or concern as to an error in the count, any candidate can request a re-check (to double check what’s already counted), or a full recount (where each vote is recounted from the start).
26. While there is a lot I could write about the proportional representation single transferable vote system beyond points 20 - 25 above, such information has been well described elsewhere by others.
I hope the information given, helps give people confidence in the security and transparency of the voting system as it operates in Ireland.

In the farm shop:

It’s busy as usual for Christmas, but a bit nicer than before in our revamped shop. So we have plenty of space to display our special gift sets and hampers of juices, jams and fruit, as well as cider, lemonade, vinegar and everything else you expect at our farm. At the moment there is plenty of choice, but if you want a hamper, do call soon, as they disappear fast.
We have our lovely range of apples, including firm and sweet Elstar, as well as that traditional favourite, Karmijn de Sonnaville. We also have Bramley cookers as usual. The 2024 apple crop was very good, so we will have plenty of apples right through till April or May.
Just beginning now are our seasonal mulled juices: mulled apple or mulled apple & blackcurrant. These are juices with spices, which make a lovely warm drink, but without the alcohol. Simply heat before serving, and warm yourself up on a cold winter’s evening. If you are wondering how they taste we have samples available in the shop every day.
For a cool drink, our sparkling juices and lemonades are going as quickly as we can make them, with people placing orders online for home delivery from all over the country.
If you’d like to send a local Apple Farm gift, and a personal message, to anywhere in Ireland, see www.theapplefarm.com

Cahir Farmers’ Market

Each Saturday morning, from 9am to 1pm, you’ll find The Apple Farm stall, at Cahir Farmers’ Market. It is a great spot, and we love being there.
There’s always a great selection of day-boat landed fresh fish from Pat Hartley, vegetables, potatoes, free range chickens and pork from Pat Butler, more vegetables, salads, microgreens, and Ballybrado products from Jim Buckley.
Then there are coffees and gluten-free treats from Kay and Shane and breads, quiches, scones, mince pies and so at Lorraine’s stall.
My Tasty (Barry & Myriam) have hummus, dried nuts, granola, protein snacks and much more. They are also running a hot food truck there for the most delicious breakfasts and brunches.
And lastly we have Keith (who’s away at the moment) and Agnes, who has local honey of every sort.
New to the market we have The Gannets Pantry, selling cheese and olives; a wonderful addition to the market.
And that’s before the plant, craft and candle stalls. Make a stop in Cahir part of your Saturday morning routine. You won’t regret it.
In the past year we sadly lost Teresa McLoughlin. Teresa, Liam and their family represented the essence of the market, and we miss Teresa greatly.

Children’s section

Volcanoes in Ireland

You may have seen the amazing pictures and videos of recent volcanoes in Iceland. It reminded me of something I learned in school, which was that we also once had volcanoes in Ireland.
There’s no need to panic, because all Ireland’s volcanoes are now extinct. But 400 million years ago, it was a different story, with at least four active volcanoes at the time.
Back then, Ireland wasn’t where it is now, because continents drift slowly over millions of years. It’s the different tectonic plates on which the continents sit, moving past each-other, or running into each-other, which cause earthquakes, but that’s a different story.
At that time, Ireland was close to the equator, and the World was a very different place. Dinosaurs hadn’t appeared yet, and much of what we now call Ireland was underwater. Plants were much simpler than now, and there were no land animals that we would recognise today. There were no four-legged animals at all at this time.
Because Ireland was on the boundary between two neighbouring continents as they met, earthquakes and volcanoes would have been common.
As Ireland formed and moved Northwards, the earthquakes and volcanos subsided, so that all are now extinct. Not that there weren’t exciting things happening while Ireland was on the move. As the Irish volcanoes subsided, there was tremendous change in the look of the World, with more complex plants, and animals such as dinosaurs appearing.
The reason we know that dinosaurs roamed Ireland before it got to its present location is because dinosaur fossils have been found in County Antrim.
If you’d like to step into the past, back 400 million years, you can still visit Ireland’s volcanos, as the mountains and hills they left behind are still around.
Ireland’s extinct volcanoes are fairly accessible. The ones that are easy to spot include Vinegar Hill, near Enniscorthy in county Wexford, Croghan Hill in County Offaly, or indeed Lambay Island, off County Dublin.
These are peaceful places now, but their existence reminds us that the volcanoes there were once as dramatic, hot and dangerous as the volcanoes we see erupting in Iceland today.


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