It's apple season, and Wisconsin is full of orchards with apples galore.
But one orchard isn't just letting people pick and eat their crop, they're using it to make one of a kind drinks.

In this week's Wandering Wisconsin, Sarah Stokes takes us to a cidery.

Sarah: Here at the Maiden Rock Winery and Cidery they grow all their own apples that make up all the juice that goes into the hard apple cider, and they're the only place in the state that specializes in hard apple cider.

Like orchards all over Western Wisconsin, apples are at the core of their business right now, and now those apples are Herdie Baisden's chosen business.

"I thought wow, I'd like to have a farm," he said.

He left a desk job for the pursuit of perfect fruit. "Apples really appeal to me. I like the history, I like the cultivation, I like the romance of apples," Baisden said.

And now he is part of a pioneering effort to bring hard cider back.

"We produce a total of 7 hard ciders," he said. "We began in 2000 and 2001 planting cider apple trees that are typically grown in the U.K. with names like Tremletts Bitter, Ellis Bitter, Kingston Black and Brown Snout."

So how does it get from the branch to the bottle?

Baisden says, "the process of making cider is very similar to the process of making wine, it's just that you're using a different fruit."

"It's all about turning sugar into alcohol."

"It will end up in a bottle like this but this is the way it starts," he says as he points to the juice.

It takes months and a whole lot of apples to create the cider. He says it takes 40 pounds of apples to make 3 gallons of juice.

"We pick our own apples," he adds. "When we bring them in we need to crush them, we have a hopper here. Put the apples in here, grind them up , take that slurry and pump it over there."

As he shows us his machines, he continues, "this is hydraulically operated so it squeezes it, the juice comes down here and then from there we pump the juice into a tank for fermenting."

Then it's time for Herdie to do a little cider chemistry.

"In this drum I have some St. Edmunds Russet juice along with some Dolgo juice."

"You decide what proportion of sweet, what proportion of bitter, which kind of bitter and how much tart."

He says he is always learning and always experimenting with his apples.

"This is our most recent product we call it Red Hawk, it's kind of hard, semi-dry," he shows us.

This year most of his cider has sold out, like the Honeycrisp Hard. "Which is made with Honeycrisp juice and honey and it is sparkled," he said.

But there are more creations to come.

"This is the Eau Claire Apple Table Wine, it's about 13.9% and I'm about ready to release it," he shows us.

This bin will make about 2,000 bottles, but it's taken a year to get it just right, which is just fine with Herdie.

"The artistry the creativity is one of the things that is really appealing to me," he said.

Herdie and his wife Carol operate both the Maiden Rock Apple Orchard and the winery and cidery. They make wine as well, and if you're wondering what the difference is, Wisconsin law says if it has a higher alcohol content than 7%, it's considered wine. If it's less, it is cider.

To find the cidery and to learn more about it, click here for a link to their website.