“Up until Prohibition, an apple grown in America was far less likely to be eaten than to wind up in a barrel of cider…” – Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
Tumalo Cider Co. makes the best semi-dry ciders I’ve had in the US. I’d rank McMenamin’s ciders second. Since the Tumalo Cider Co. tasting room is one of my favorite spots in Central Oregon, I caught up with the owner, Jeff Bennet, for a chat on a sunny Saturday this spring.
Tumalo (pronounced tum-uh-low, not toom-allo) is a small town about seven miles from Bend, and sixteen miles from Sisters, in Central Oregon. The Tumalo Cider Co. taproom is across the street from The Bite, a food truck park with its own tap selection. Outside food is welcome at the Tumalo Cider taproom, which has no kitchen of its own, so the location works out well, as Maddy (who works in the taproom) commented.
Tumalo Cider Co. is part of the Oregon Beverage Collective, along with Crux Fermentation, GoodLife Brewing, Silver Moon Brewing, and Cascade Lakes Brewing. Contrary to what rumors and some articles reported when OBC announced their partnership in February, none of the participating businesses sold to Oregon Beverage Collective. As Jeff explained, “There’s a lot of misconceptions…and when all those articles came out…the information was not accurate.” The OBC is a collection of the four previously mentioned breweries, and Tumalo Cider Co.
“…Nobody different owns Tumalo Cider. You know, I don’t own Crux, or GoodLife, or any of that…”
The participating businesses in OBC, “…basically came together to share resources…for instance,
Crux has a couple of…sales guys that work for them… instead of just doing stuff for Crux, they’re doing stuff for all of those brands. The other example is we’re canning at Cascade Lakes. So they give me a good price on my canning, so it helps my cost.”
I’m not a real estate expert, but I can see that in much of Central Oregon, real estate is valuable. In some cases, breweries decide to move in order to reduce real estate overhead.
See (The Ale Apothecary – moving, but not gone).
For everyone to be running their own production facilities is not necessarily cost effective. In the case of Cascade Lakes, who have more space in their Redmond facility, it appears to make perfect sense to give their OBC partners a good deal on canning there. And as Jeff shared,
“…we’ll have leftover stuff from canning… and we’ll put those in kegs and I sell those kegs to them cheap…then they take those kegs and put it in…7th Street pub in Redmond, Cascade Lakes in Bend, GoodLife’s taproom, things like that.”
OBC also makes distribution easier. The members all have the same distributor (which is now Columbia Distributing), and with multiple brands available in one location, “…the distributor can make one stop and pick up multiple brands rather than going to five different facilities around Central Oregon….so it helps the distributor out…That was the idea behind doing this.”
Tumalo Cider Co. started in 2015; like many others in the craft beverage industry, Jeff Bennett began by homebrewing. At first, the cider was self-distributed and they did that for a couple of years. They’ve been in their current taproom space since 2019, but as far as canning, they outgrew that space pretty quickly, and Jeff started bringing in a mobile canner to package the cider. now, their production is too much for that (around 75,000 – 80,000 barrels per year), and they do all their canning at Cascade Lakes.
On Tumalo Cider’s 15-tap wall, you won’t find a single sweet cider. Whether you’re looking at Cherry Blossom (a spring special, with a pleasant, not-overdone floral note), Pineapple Orange Guava, Dark Fruit, Blackberry Agave Lime, Sweet Heat (with habañero, strawberry, peach, and nectarine) or any other entry on the tap wall, They’re all dry or semi-dry. As Jeff explained, “I mean, I can’t drink the sweet ciders…I don’t want to make an angry orchard. I don’t think the world needs more sweet ciders…just trying to be true to…what we would want to drink, right?”
What does Jeff drink when he gets tired of cider?
“So you know what I really like?…I like Crux’s Bochi Bochi…That’s what I’ve been drinking.”
Natalie Benage is the cider master, and I caught up with her via email to learn more about how she comes up with the sometimes-surprising cider flavors (like Sweet Heat).
Natalie has a degree in Fermentation Science from Oregon State. She’s been with Tumalo Cider Co. since July of 2024, and she’s been in charge of production since the end of 2024, or so.
Like many cideries, Tumalo starts with a base apple juice blend, mostly Washington apples. The other fruit concentrates (such as blackberries, cherries, plums, etc.) come from fruit processing facilities.
Peppers in cider? Delicious, but surprising. Natalie’s response,
“Tumalo Cider has been making a spicy cider for a while but in the past few years, it has become a popular flavor trend so mixing in other fruits to make it light and approachable…Making small batches and doing bench-top trials is the best way to see what flavors will work well together.”
And is there anything else we should know about the ciders? Natalie said,
We specialize in dry-style ciders so they’re all light and easy-drinking! Most cider on the market will have between 10-16 grams of sugar in a pint (16 oz) but all of our ciders only have about 4 grams of sugar so if you’re looking for a low sugar cider that still has lots of flavor come check us out!
Natalie tries to make 1 – 2 new ciders per month, most of which are only available at the Tumalo Cider Co. tasting room. There’s pretty much always something new to try.
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