Brown Apple Juice

Growing up, we would sometimes spend the day at work with my dad.  He worked in a research lab on the campus of the University.  I never completely knew what he did, nor ever understood it.  I think I ended up telling everyone he was inventing a nuclear physics bomb or something. 

None of that really mattered. 

What mattered was 



.................. lunch time. 

More specifically a drink.  We probably had a packed lunch from home but Dad would take us to get some brown apple juice.  We always called it that.  "Brown Apple Juice".  And there was just something incredible about it. 

It's been close to three decades since then. 

They say the sense of smell and taste invoke memories better than any other sense.  I have 7 apple trees in my back yard.  I have made close to 1000 quarts of apple sauce and 600 quarts of pie slices and 100 quarts of juice since moving to this home 7 years ago.  We've taken advantage of the bounteous harvests.  This year, Caleb took a bucket of our apples to a gentleman's home in the neighbourhood.  This older gentleman had been telling Caleb about a press that he had made. 

We typically steam our apples in a juicer to extract the juice.  We also drink hot cider for about a month.  Can't get enough.  It's delicious. 

Caleb was gone an hour and a half.  He returned with 7 jars of brown liquid. 

One sip. 

I was transported. 

I was about 10 years old, on the university campus, drinking 'brown apple juice.'

It was even better than I could have imagined and definitely surpassed what I had remembered.  In looking back on the last 7 years I've missed out.  I should have been cold pressing.  Our cider pales... quite literally... in comparison.