The Beginning

What am I going to blog about? I am planning on documenting what I hope is a beginning of starting my own business of selling fruit wine and cider.

The idea was a slow growing one. I was raised on a farm, but live and work in the city. The recession was coming on, and I'm always looking for ways to do things myself to save a buck. You know, go back to the basics. I moved in with my boyfriend in a house in the suburbs, and finally got to grow a garden. After my boyfriend was upgraded to fiancé, we went to a local distillery, and I was really impressed, thinking, this would be awesome to do myself, but I didn't really do anything about it. However, there was a man in our tour group who said he had brewed cider, and I thought that would be a better starting point since my parents have about six apple trees on their property. Free material source!

I got a hold of some books on cider and started reading them on my honeymoon since I now had time with the wedding being over. I was strictly thinking of doing it as a hobby at this point. There was one day, however, where I was jealous of my husband's summers off from teaching, and the increased recession fears that my new boss didn't know what to do with me and was going to let me go. This idea of having a winery suddenly popped into my head, and I've kind of obsessed with the idea since, knowing that I wouldn't get summers off.

My winery would not sell grape wine because that can be found anywhere. Instead, I draw my inspiration from Shallon Winery in Astoria, OR. It is run by an old gentleman who makes the most wonderful fruit wines, including a cranberry whey wine and a chocolate orange wine. Last time I was there, before I had my idea, I asked what would happen upon his death, as it would be a terrible thing to lose his recipes. Now I hope that I could purchase at least the cranberry whey wine recipe from him.

It has been about four months since I began my hobby research, and now I am beginning to blog about it. I hope you will watch as I try to turn this little hobby into a business.