Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards launches subsidiary, adds café, wine-tasting room

LAFAYETTE — Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards, Inc., a destination for apple-picking Central New Yorkers for more than a century, is opening its 2013 season with a new look and a newly branded product.

 

Beak & Skiff, with offices located at 4472 Cherry Valley Turnpike (U.S. Route 20) in the town of LaFayette, has added a new small-craft distillery, a wholly owned subsidiary that it’s now branding as “1911 Spirits.”

 

Beak & Skiff also expanded its nearby Apple Hill campus along Lords Hill Road (County Route 80) to include a café, a wine-tasting room, and a larger apple barn, says Danielle Fleckenstein, spokesperson for Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards.

 

Fleckenstein’s husband, Peter, is Beak & Skiff’s apple-orchard manager, she says.

 

The business also renovated its retail store on the Apple Hill campus.

 

The expansion project “was always part of the plan,” Fleckenstein says.

 

“The difficult year last year reinforced to us the need to diversify and have other sources of revenue [involved in] the business, so that when we do have a tough year in one aspect of the business, we can make up for it in other spots,” she adds.

 

Beak & Skiff dealt with one of its “toughest” years in 2012 as the spring frost “destroyed” much of the apple crop, according to Fleckenstein.

 

The difficult year was “part of the reason” Beak & Skiff expanded the Apple Hill campus and “put so much energy and effort” into its spirits business, figuring the added product line can “help us in tougher years … over the long term,” she says.

 

 

 

1911 Spirits

 

Beak & Skiff in 2009 started making apple wines, which Fleckenstein described as a “way to get our feet wet in the alcohol side of the business.”

 

The company produced apple wines and ciders, which were under the name Beak & Skiff.

 

A few years later, Steve Morse, the company’s master distiller, figured out a way to make vodka from the apples, she says. After refining the process, Beak & Skiff eventually launched a vodka product.

 

From “tree to bottle,” the process and ingredients are controlled in-house to produce handcrafted, small-batch spirits and artisanal-hard ciders, Fleckenstein says.

 

The company in February renamed its vodka and spirit products “1911 Spirits,” she adds.

 

Beak & Skiff had been introducing its vodka to customers prior to its official public announcement of the 1911 Spirits name on Aug. 5.

 

The name 1911 Spirits is taken from the year that Andrew Beak & George Skiff founded the apple orchards. The Beak and Skiff families remain the owners of the orchard to this day, says Fleckenstein.

 

In addition to its own wine-tasting room, 1911 Spirits is selling its small-batch vodka in the shops on board Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Norwegian Cruise Lines, Fleckenstein says.

 

 

 

Expanding Apple Hill campus

 

Beak & Skiff began working with Woodford Bros., Inc. of Apulia Station on design concepts for the tasting room and café last fall. Construction on the tasting room and café started in the spring and “moved pretty rapidly” to finish the work ahead of the opening on Aug. 23.

 

The new 7,500-square-foot addition bears the name “1911” on its roof.

 

 “Although this is new construction, the entire interior is made out of reclaimed wood from several barns in Pennsylvania that are of the same vintage of our general-store building,” Fleckenstein says.

 

Just down the hill, D Featherstone Construction, LLC of Tully handled the “complete remodel” of the 3,000-square-foot general-store building on the Apple Hill campus, she says.

 

The work on the exterior included a new roof, siding, and a new coat of paint. The interior work opened the space for more product sales and easier customer movement.

 

The retail store sells apple-based products, including butter, salsa, jam, along with local cheeses, apple cider, honey, and fudge, Fleckenstein says.

 

Beak & Skiff also expanded its bakery area in the same store to offer more products, she adds.

 

In between the retail store and the 1911 barn with the tasting room and café, Beak & Skiff also “quadrupled” the size of the apple barn from about 500 square feet to about 2,000 square feet.

 

The expanded space allows for more cold-storage capacity for apples and a smaller apple-sorting line, she says.

 

Beak & Skiff declined to disclose the cost of the expansion or how the company financed the project, according to Fleckenstein.

 

 

 

About Beak & Skiff

 

Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards covers more than 700 acres of land off the Cherry Valley Turnpike (Route 20), including 400 farmable acres, Fleckenstein says.

 

“This spring, alone, we planted 15,000 new trees on some of that land. The rest of the acreage is made up of storage facilities, coolers, offices, packing lines, and other buildings that serve our business,” Fleckenstein says.

 

The trees planted in 2013 are part of a “big investment” in Beak & Skiff’s orchard. The business also intends to plant 10,000 new trees next year.

 

“Some of that is to increase the amount of farmable acres that we have. Some of it is to replace older trees that have … reached the end of their life cycle that we can put new, more productive trees in their place,” she says.

 

The 2013 apple crop is looking “great” following “limited” weather issues this past spring, according to Fleckenstein.

 

During its peak season in late summer and autumn, Beak & Skiff employs a mix of about 150 full- and part-time people across all areas of its business, including the Apple Hill campus, the packing line, cider mill, and orchard operations. It employs about 40 full-time workers the remainder of the year, according to Fleckenstein.

 

With the expansion of the 1911 Spirits business and the new tasting room and café, Beak & Skiff has increased the number of full-time, year-round positions.

 

“We’ve hired a full-time food manager / chef, a full-time tasting-room employee, and some sales representatives for 1911 Spirits,” she says.

 

Beak & Skiff has also added a junior distiller, who serves in a full-time capacity, she adds.

 

Beak & Skiff’s customer base includes the apple-picking general public, and area grocery-store chains through its wholesale business.

 

“Our customer base is expanding to those people that have really started to follow our spirits line and have an appreciation for premium vodka and gin, as well as hard cider,” she says.

 

Fleckenstein declined to specifically name the local customers of its wholesale business but they include “all the major local grocery chains, as well as some small, independent grocers carry our products throughout the Syracuse area,” she says.

 

 

 

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com