Having cornered the market on American hard ciders, Angry Orchard’s Cider House in Walden New York is endlessly popular with visitors- and with good reason!
Having only incidentally driven past the Cider House, it was fairly late in the afternoon and extremely crowded- we got one of the last spots available in the overflow parking lot. Despite this, the team on property are clearly very used to this volume of visitors- I think we waited on line for a maximum of five minutes before getting our drinks.
We chose to get a flight of the cider. The flights are only available on the weekends, but the cider options can rotate seasonally, so it’s a good idea to get a growler of your favorite limited drinks! The drinks that come with the flights are pre-selected to minimize the time spent on the lines, but we were able to choose between Sweet and Dry flights for $12 a piece. I chose the Sweet flight since I was very interested in trying their Peach Mango brew, though the classic Crisp Apple still wound up being my favorite- I guess it’s hard to beat the original!
There are a few tour options to choose from to further explore the property. They must be booked in advance so we didn’t have the time to go on any, but at least one of their tours ends with an exclusive drink at their fancy looking tree house!
The Cider House itself luckily doesn’t require reservations and there was plenty of outdoor seating at their beautiful property. Many people chose to bring their dogs giving it the overall feeling of a huge outdoor picnic. There were even a few food trucks in addition to the on-site food so there were plenty of options to snack on, making it a great way to spend an afternoon.