The Taunton Cider Company is growing again in Somerset

For those of you straining the brain to think what could it be, then I will tell you, I am referring to The Taunton Cider Company.

It is not often a company or firm which has well established roots in a county or people’s minds disappears only to re-emerge like the proverbial Phoenix from the flames.

But this is what happened to The Taunton Cider Company.

As it states on its website: “The Taunton Cider Company effectively disappeared until it was re-registered in 2015 by a group of cider enthusiasts.”

This re-launch or re-birth happened at Taunton Rugby Club on November 26, 2016.

One of the people responsible for bringing back this iconic Somerset brand was Crispin Reed.

Speaking about this renaissance, Crispin said: “There are four of us at the heart of this.

“When I heard what had happened I really wanted to help bring this brand and company back to life. We are now five and a half months into our journey and it is very exciting. My background is in advertising and marketing and branding.

"One of the partners was responsible for helping re-boosting Ben Sherman and as such we are very excited to this venture.

“We are incredibly sensitive to the history of the company and want to do things right.

“What the Taunton Cider Company does have is a great heritage and authenticity and we want to make sure this is retained.”

The plans for the ‘new company’ are very much targeted at growth but also being careful to insure they don’t try and run before they can walk.

In these early months the company has focussed on getting its cider back into sports pubs and clubs in Taunton, Somerset and in the West Country.

So far they are delighted with the support and the fact customers love the product and this has all helped in getting the cider back into 200 establishments.

The company is beginning to get a regional and national distribution which is helping the growth.

Crispin said: “We are very respectful of the authenticity of our product. We use apples from Somerset including Dabinett, Yarlington Mills and Harry Masters Jersey apples.

"We are using orchards which have been used since the early part of the 20th century.

“We are not growing our own at the moment but that might feature in future plans.

“What we see the heritage of the company as being like oxygen as we are appealing to cider drinkers and want to appeal to non-cider drinkers.

“As a result we have worked very hard to perfect the flavour and have decided to keep the ABV at four percent.

We tried many blind tasting sessions in pubs so we knew what people thought.

“We offered them a selection of ciders some not made by us. But by the end our brand was chosen as the one people much preferred.

“What we are seeing is people are looking for artisan cider makers and we hope they will find us. It is certainly a growing market.

“This is down to the powerful emotion of nostalgia. It is a nostalgia for a happiness of the past and the heritage of the name which contains the name of Taunton.

“It is a well known town and people associate Somerset with apples and cider making

“Even if people have never heard of us they feel they have should have heard of the name.”

The Taunton Cider Company still makes its cider it what can be called the ‘old fashioned’ or ‘traditional way’.

The apples are washed and are then put into the press.

The juice is extracted and then put into the tanks and then it is left to ferment before it heads to the bottling plant.

As Crispin explained: “We work closely with the cider maker as one of the key challenges we face is consistency.

“Our profile is start to rise by word of mouth and many chefs we are speaking to are using it to cook with in their kitchens.

“We are not one of the big boys and this all helps us grow. But at the moment we are still working hard as it is only five and a half months since the re-launch.

“What we want to do is put the company and the brand at the centre of cider making.”