We meet the man making Yorkshire cider at an 800-year-old water-powered corn mill

Nestled in the foothills of the North Yorkshire Moors, Ampleforth Abbey is a fine example of this ongoing cider making success story and is keeping the spirit alive in this beautiful part of God’s Own County.

Yorkshire was, apparently, the first English county recorded to be making cider so the growth in the craft cider industry here is certainly in-keeping with tradition.

Nick Burrows, a great appreciator and preserver of the past, is among those – including the aforementioned Ampleforth Abbey - contributing to the county’s cider production. Nick’s cider making is also helping to restore and maintain his 800-year-old home – the brand behind his business.

Coulton Mill is a Grade II* listed former water powered corn mill. Located within the Howardian Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Nick’s home is perfectly placed with its orchard, producing 64 varieties of apple including every known Yorkshire apple, and outbuildings providing him with the space for his craft cider production.

The table in his cosy sitting room is topped with his latest batch of Coulton Mill’s Mulled Cyder. The soft glow of the open fire illuminates the bottles’ golden liquid contents.

Interestingly the first written instructions for cider making, on which Nick bases his recipe, were documented by Elizabethan clergyman, William Lawson of Coxwold in his book ‘A New Orchard and Kitchen Garden.’

Flicking through the pages of this rare copy from Nick’s collection of early horticultural books, he talks enthusiastically about Lawson, and his benefactor Henry Belayses’ apple growing legacy through their writings. Through research, Nick also discovered the important part Yorkshire had played in cider production.

“I realised we had an astonishing history of making cider here,” says Nick, whose knowledge of the fruit has developed through managing the orchard at Coulton Mill. “The wonderful thing about apples is an apple is a genetic clone. Every apple pip is a new variety. I have got every known Yorkshire variety growing on standard root stock.”

Demonstrating the range, Nick places four apples, different in colour and texture, on the kitchen table. Each produce a different taste and flavour. In the adjoining mill house containers of small Dabinett apples are waiting to be pressed. Nick explains they are mixed with his Yorkshire varieties. They include Yorkshire Greening – a very acidic apple; Sharlston Pippin, one of the rarest and believed to originate from an area of Wakefield; Acklam Russett, a dessert apple from York, which is ready in November and retains its flavour until March.

“It is local provenance, local identity.” The oldest variety is Court Pendu Plat. “This is also known as the wise apple because it looks as though it is dead all the way through May. It is the last apple to blossom because we get the frost. But what do you do with these apples?

"Every farm in this area used to have between 12 to 20 trees and if you look at the maps every farm has geometric dots which was an orchard. That would get them through winter,” says Nick, referencing the history of apple growing in Yorkshire. So why cider?

“I have always liked cider. It is a natural drink. It has got a lot of folklore. It is a bit of an acquired taste but it isn’t really about alcohol. With my ciders they are definitely sipping – you are not going to be drinking pints of it.”

Sitting by the fire with a tumbler of Coulton Mill Cyder in hand (before 1880 cider was spelt with a ‘y’ and his inspiration comes from that time) is how Nick envisages it to be savoured. It is, for him, a refreshing thought for all the hard work that goes into producing around 2,000 litres of cider a year.

“There is a real joy in the labour. It is hard work but it is a pleasure to do it,” says Nick. Working with the seasons, and the nature of the production, it is also a process which cannot be rushed. “From picking the apple to putting it into bottles it takes a minimum of one year,” says Nick.

Within the old milking parlour next year’s Mulled Cyder is fermenting following production which begins in the old mill where the hallmarks of Coulton Mill’s fascinating history can be found in the water wheel, dating back to the 1500s and ceiling chains for raising bags of corn.

Today, the milling of corn has been replaced by the chopping and pressing of apples to create Coulton Mill’s range of aperitifs. Among them the apple juice Nick began producing three years ago, and the Whisky Cask Cyder maturing in oak barrels for two years.

Two years ago he introduced Mulled Cyder into the range which he is busy developing and which has already received recognition in the Great Taste Awards, a food and drink accreditation scheme supporting and promoting food and drink producers.

With the focus on the festive season, the aforementioned bottles of Mulled Cyder will soon be labelled with the spices and instruction kit attached, and loaded into wooden crates ready for the Christmas market at Hovingham and Christmas markets hosted by Real Markets in Ilkley and at Ripley Castle.

Interestingly, spices were commonplace in North Yorkshire in the 1580s. Lawson’s writings had recommended the use of spices from across the world. Previous work with the Foreign Office took Nick to the city of Banda Aceh following the tsunami giving him an insight into the need to help create sustainable communities.

Sourcing his spices through EKO Land Produce, a farmer’s cooperative, from the Kandyan Forest Garden in central Sri Lanka, an ancient agro-forestry method design to sustainably grow a whole range of fruits and spices in and amongst native forest trees, ensures the farmers receive a living wage.

“Their work helps to preserve the ancient spice forests and gives the growers a fair price for their produce. It’s a little part of the county’s history and the warm spirit of a Yorkshire Christmas.” So passionate is Nick about Yorkshire’s cider making heritage, he is keen to promote his fellow producers too by showcasing aperitifs from what is collectively known as the Howardian Hills, including Ampleforth Abbey Cider, Orchards of Husthwaite and Thornborough Cider, at the markets he attends.

“We have this amazing history from cider makers within five miles of me, let’s gather them together and call it Howardian Hills Cider and try to develop an identity and try to make the Howardian Hills a centre of cider making in the North of England.”

Working as a farm conservation officer for North Yorkshire Council, Nick is conscious of how farming communities are focusing on ways to stay viable for the future. He is keen to encourage farmers around the area to plant small orchards so the legacy of cider making can be handed down to the next generation. In the same way, he hopes his efforts through his own cider making will help to secure the future of Coulton Mill. “It has to be viable for the future. It cannot be a museum,” he says. “The really important thing for me is we are preserving the past as a base for the future.”