My flight choices: Autumn Apple and Wisteria ciders; and a sweet cherry wine
I’ve always associated Blake’s Cider Mill with pleasant childhood memories. I used to love going there and watching the cider get made and eating batches of freshly made donuts. I still do. Cider mills make me happy.
My visit last night to the new-ish (opened in the last year) on-site restaurant/bar, Blake’s Ciderhouse and Winery, felt a bit premature. The place was pretty empty for a Saturday night (although it is Labor Day weekend, and restaurant attendance is always lackluster over such holiday weekends). But I bet in a couple of weeks, the place will start getting packed and stay that way until winter. People will let go of summer and get into autumn mode, watching football and wearing sweaters and taking their kids to Blake’s to ride the wagons and pick out pumpkins.
Where did this summer go? I feel like it slipped away before I got a chance to enjoy it. That’s how pretty much every summer has felt for me as an adult, but I especially feel it this year. I love fall; it’s my favorite season, and there’s a part of me that is very excited for it, but there’s another part of me that is sad. It’s never easy to say goodbye to summer. Warm weather is my jam.
Enough of me waxing poetic. For those of you who are also blue about summer being over, take consolation in the fact that you can visit this place and drown your sorrows in one of the multiple varieties of hard cider, ranging from dry to sweet, that Blake’s brews and offers. They have a flight option that costs $9 and gives you the choice of any three of their ciders and the Michigan-brewed wines that they also offer. Each offering in the flight is only supposed to be a half-pour’s worth, but our server poured my friend and me full glasses; she said sometimes she is feeling generous and does that. So needless to say, it was a great deal!
One of the ciders I tried, the Wisteria, was a lavender-infused hard cider – delicious. The mini ham-and-cheese pretzel-bun sliders I got were awesome, too.
17985 Armada Center Rd.
Armada, MI 48005
100 Places in the D 