Idaho’s first cider house could become a reality later this year.
Meriwether Cider Company staked out a taproom and production facility in Garden City two years ago.
Business has been booming ever since, and earlier this week, the company announced it would renovate a space on the corner of 9th and Bannock in downtown Boise.
Co-owner Molly Leadbetter says the place will have 20 taps that will include their own cider, as well as give people the chance to try several different blends.
“We’ll have local ciders and regional ciders and national and international and anything we can get our hands on. We are going to be kind of picky. We don’t want any artificially sweetened or colored or anything. We want to serve people good ciders,” Leadbetter says.
She says she also wants the downtown location to serve as an educational experience for those who are new to the world of hard cider.
“There’s a lack of really accessible cider here so we want our cider house to be an education system for people – say, ‘This is what a French cider tastes like, this is what a Spanish cider tastes like.’”
Fueled by the craft brewing craze, hard cider sales across the U.S. have exploded in recent years to $1.3 billion both in restaurants and at retail stores.
Meriwether will move in to the space in March and open sometime later in 2018. Leadbetter says they’ll still keep the Garden City taproom.
For more local news, follow James Dawson on Twitter @RadioDawson
Copyright 2018 Boise State Public Radio
