Artisanal Cider: What We're Reading and Sipping This Winter
Even a color can be inspiring—especially when it’s soulful. This season, as we straddle the gap between winter and the arrival of spring, we’re gravitating to one hue in particular: Jura Peat. We developed the shade to echo the actual peat in the misty moors of Scotland’s Isle of Jura, in the Inner Hebrides. It prompted our earthy readings this month, all of which prove there’s no such thing as a dull brown.
What We're Reading
Here, the six design books we’re currently obsessed with—page turners, all.
Ezequiel Farca: Studio
Part of what makes Mexican modernism so entrancing are the juxtapositions—pure architectural lines straddling surreal plantings and untrammeled wilderness. Ezequiel Farca Studio has perfected it, as you’ll find in this stunning book, with exquisitely crafted homes from Cabo to Baja and back again.
Assembled in Light: The Houses of Barnes Coy Architects / Alastair Gordon
Waterside living has a special wow-factor in the homes of Barnes Coy Architects. In these pages, you can practically smell the salty air as you wander from eye-popping residence to eye-popping residence, many of them out East in the Hamptons.
Studio Indigo: Architecturally Creative Interiors / Mike Fisher
This oversized compendium of projects from London design firm Studio Indigo highlights what they do best: riveting spaces that feel storied, and always immaculately tailored to the personalities that inhabit them.
The Young Man and the Tree: Fernando Wong Landscape Design / Tim Johnson
Proof Fernando Wong’s landscape design work is a good thing: Martha Stewart wrote the foreword. In the dead of winter, this whirl through gardens from Palm Beach to Lyford Cay is an absolute delight, no SPF required.
Three Houses / Rose Tarlow
The Francophile-meets-SoCal allure of Rose Tarlow will never grow tiresome, especially in this tome devoted to the designer’s private homes—in Provence, France and sunswept California.
Architecture of Place / Bates Masi + Architects
Some of the most head-turning residences in the Hamptons owe their ineffable cool factor to Bates Masi + Architects, whose work is stunningly captured here in their second monograph.
What We're sipping
Virginians have loved cider since the colonial era, when it was more commonly imbibed than water. Here, our favorite local makers.
Patois (Albemarle County, Va)
Winemaker Patrick Collins and his partner Danielle forage apples from abandoned orchards across the Commonwealth of Virginia and develop natural ciders without commercial ingredients, in a style very much original to the 18th century tradition. Huzzah, indeed.
Troddenvale (Bath County, Va)
Located in the remote county of Bath, Virginia, this husband and wife producer creates transparency-driven cider of origin with little to no alterations. Purity with each pour.
Potter's Craft Cider (Charlottesville, Va)
Farmhouse-style ciders from Charlottesville, Virginia, using local apples and traditional production methods (i.e. zero added sugar).
Castle Hill Cider (Keswick, Va)
Following the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, Colonel Thomas Walker brought New York Newton Pippin scions to his Virginia estate Castle Hill, where he promptly planted them, developing what is today known as the Albemarle Pippin. Home to more than 5,000 trees and more than 40 apple varieties, Castle Hill Cider is still outstanding in the world of cider making—nearly 250 years later.
Mother Shrub (Richmond, Va)
Non-alcoholic drinking vinegars made using apple cider vinegar in Richmond, Virginia by Meredyth Archer. Among our favorite flavors: Black Cherry, Cranberry and Salted Honey. Divine.
