Cider Apples

  The Winter Banana (1876)

A showy apple - pale, thin waxy yellow skin with pink blush.

We found this mild tasting apple very hard but juicy.  I chose to plant it because many people talked about its distinctive banana aftertaste; but honestly, I couldn't discern it.

Although our box of Winter Bananas looked a little spotted, there was no rot inside.  The spots affected only the outside.

The Winter Banana serves as the pollinator for my Esopus Spitzenberg and also the Arkansas Black.

Cider Apples

The Esopus Spitzenberg (1700's)

 

Rumored to be Thomas Jefferson's favorite eating apple from Monticello.  Jefferson operated Monticello as a working farm, growing apples for commerce.  The Esopus Spitzenberg, introduced sometime in the 1700s by an early Dutch settler for whom it was named, was grown in a settlement on the Hudson River in New York, called Esopus.  This was the apple Jefferson supposedly kept for himself.

An excellent cider apple that has a very sharp flavor with enough acid to balance the sweetness, the Esopus Spitzenberg is susceptible to many diseases afflicting heirloom apples. 

I was fortunate that mine turned out only partially afflicted despite their relative neglect over the past few years.  Our tree was very bountiful this year.

The E. Spitzenberg is a lovely green with a red blush and a buttery yellow flesh.

This variety is exceptionally high in malic acid, although  mild, it is good for digestion.  A nice eating apple, but an even nicer cider apple.