THE STORY OF WILD ROSE
“The Apple Comes from the Rose”
Wild Rose has been our longest standing, year over year botanical cider now returning for its 9th vintage.
The original rose used in this popular cider was the sweet briar. Sweet briar roses are a hedge rose brought here by European settlers in the 1800’s and as of 2014, had finally made it on the recognized list of noxious invasive species (see below reference).
Where we live is home to several native species of roses that grow and breed in varied habitats, but there are far more that have been introduced. From climbing roses, hedge roses, tea roses and shrub roses there is constant wild breeding taking place that produces an absolutely immense variety of interestingly shaped flowers, leaves and plant structures.
While observing wild breeding is fascinating to those enthralled by botany and one MAY come across a unique rose bearing the desirable characteristics that we have known to love and utilize. The truth is many of the wild breeds are not aromatic. Producing flowers that rot rapidly, will not dry, smell of dirty socks or other characteristics that aren’t typical to why humans and roses have had a long standing bond. The kind of roses that make it around the planet more than any traveling plant EVER. The kind to become among the most widely imported/exported commodities of ANY botanical. (Fun fact, the walk-in that we store kegs in was built for the purpose of cut flower import/export in the late 60’s by a man from Israel)
There is certainly concern about the import/export relationships, fossil fuel and de-localization as we consider world-wide issues around these topics. The local concern is that the more the non-native roses breed, the further the native roses become from their original seed rendering the native seeds extinct from the original genetics. This has immense implications to habitat.
The sweet briar is intensely aromatic and is a species that produces more oils in the leaves and flowers than the rest of the plant making it great for more entire utilization. The stems (when thorned) can be stripped for rope or pulped for paper.
The first vintages of Wild Rose were produced as part of a removal effort in Lane County Parks. We would remove the entire plant and process the material off-site. These almost apple-scented leaves and buds were then cold conditioned in finished cider (mostly high acid varieties) before kegging or bottling, lending a tea like tannin and the calming aromatics of the rose. (We reluctantly composted the stalks, but hey)
Those areas have now been cleared by that effort and as we looked for opportunities to continue this through the valley, the discovery was how 90 percent of areas of concentration are managed by chemical spray rather than mechanical means of removal. Add this to the list of invasive species sprayed in concentrated areas and we realize the severe volume of chemicals that are dumped on the soil and into the water table is more than we could ever imagine.
The other difficulty is the politics surrounding these means of “management”. Regardless of the inherent harm to land, animals and humans this method employs, the conversation of alternate means of containment and a new proposed strategy is thrown out before any discussion. The National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Army Corps of Engineers are responsible for the majority of land management here in Oregon. While the National Forest Service is the only one to enact a no-spray policy, we see these lands becoming interchangeable without public knowledge and to what the history of chemical use may be. There are clearly no ultimate means of protection.
Until we can negotiate localization efforts, there will be no harvest. Even at this point we need 3-4 years to allow the plants to be freed of toxin and safe for consumption. (Fun fact, these same chemical sprays have been normalized in agriculture. Soooooo. Check your sources)
How are we still producing this cider?
Once we reached the 4th vintage of this cider, there was nowhere to continue this harvest program on unsprayed land. Due to the popularity of the flavor profile and the importance of this story continuing to be shared over a cider, we went to organically farmed tea roses from areas that do not pose a threat to landscape. This cider since has been a collaboration with Mountain Rose Herbs dawning after conversations sparked at the first Mountain Rose Tap Takeover.
Join us for the 7th annual Mountain Rose Herbs tap takeover April 6th, 2024 to dive deeper into these conversations and taste a blend of other foraged ciders and bitters along with a tap list of collaborations made exclusively from the MRH catalog.
To get a sense of the chemical volume used by timber and land management, Beyond Toxics is a non-profit working to educate and make political changes on the subject of toxic spray. A great resource for more information.
Here is the initial publication by the ODA