Steven T. Bashore, director of Historic Trades at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, gives a lecture on the history of cider in Alexandria. Photo by Vernon Miles.
From hand-cranked wooden presses to the tab at an Old Town pub, hard cider has a long history in Alexandria. As part of Cider Week, a series of events themed around cider hosted by the Office of Historic Alexandria, a lecture and tasting on Nov. 17 in the Lyceum examined the role hard cider played in Alexandria’s history.
Steven T. Bashore, director of Historic Trades at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, said cider’s history in the United States can be traced as far back as the arrival of the Mayflower, where a wooden piece of the cider press is recorded as being repurposed to repair damage to the ship. Settlers brought seeds and saplings with them to be replanted in the American colonies, including one orchard at Jamestown in 1656.
“Apple orchards are part of the colonial landscape of early America,” Bashore said. Locally, Bashore said the apple orchards and cider press were prominent features at Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate. Cider was brought in from Mount Vernon and other local farms to Alexandria, the largest nearby city to trade in.
Early in Alexandria’s history, Bashore said rum was the drink of choice. Colonel John Fitzgerald, owner of the Fitzgerald Warehouse at the foot of King Street, was a prominent local distiller of rum. Bashore said records at Mount Vernon show that Washington was a customer. Port cities like Alexandria were the centers of rum distillation as the sugar was brought in by ship. However, after independence, relations with Britain made sugar harder to get, leading to whisky, beer, and cider ultimately replacing rum as the drink of choice in America.