For the second year in a row, Toronto Cider Festival was back at it again last weekend at Yonge and Dundas Square bringing all cider lovers together! The Toronto Cider Festival consisted of 19 different Cider Vendors with multiple offerings. I couldn’t get enough of the cider selections from the Toronto Festival of Beer this year so this festival was totally up my street.
Toronto Cider Festival offered 3 different sessions in 1 day. We were luckily invited to the VIP Session so we were able to get a head start hopping from vendor to vendor for an hour before guests started to pour in for the evening session.
- Morning 11:30AM – 4:00PM
- VIP 5:00PM entry and
- Evening session 6:00PM – 10:30PM
The morning & afternoon session $30.00 tickets come with:
- Commemorative Sample Mug
- 4 Sample Token (4 oz)
- Access to the best ciders and food pairings in Ontario
- Flair cider cocktail competition (session 2 only)
- Fantastic live entertainment, games, contests and giveaways
In additional to the above, VIP tickets ($60.00) come with:
- 6 additional sampling tokens (10 in total)
- Exclusive access to festival for 1 additional hour
- Exclusive entertainment for VIP Session
- Bonus VIP Giveaways
The official currency at the Toronto Cider Festival were by way of tokens. 1 Token = 1 Cider Sample (4 oz). Please enjoy the rest of the cider photos below which are in no particular order.
(1) ERNEST CIDER
(2) IRONWOOD CIDER
- Ironwood Cider is found in Central & Southern Ontario.
- Ironwood is a native hard wood that is often used as tool handle. It is commonly referred to as the hardest and most resilient wood in Canada
- They craft Ironwood Hard Cider to resemble these qualities. Cold Hard Cider that is Genuine Strong.
They offered Original Cider, Oaked Cider & Cranberry Cider. We opted for their Cranberry Cider Selection!
(3) COUNTY CIDER
- The County Cider Company & Estate Winery is a family-operated estate winery specializing in mouth-watering hard ciders.
Paired with complimentary sliders
(4) DOUBLE TROUBLE BREWERY
- This brewery was forumlated by two friends who shared the same love and passion for Craft Beer.
Double Trouble offered their ‘Grow a Pear Cider’ – It is a crisp and rich cider. Crafted from 100 percent Ontario pears and not from concentrate. This was actually one of my favourites cider of the evening.
Mustache Burger was one of the vendors at the Festival offering your favourite burgers, fries and poutine!
(5) SAVANNA DRY CIDER
- Savanna dry is from South Africa.
- Their cider equation is: apples + fermentation + micro-filtering + chill-filtering = Savanna Dry
Savanna Dry is an all-natural, GMO/ gluten free cider with a light golden colour. It is a medium to light in body and has fresh apple aromas with hints of citrus on the nose. Their cider is slightly tart with a crisp, dry, with a refreshing taste.
(6) FORBIDDEN CIDER
- They offered their ‘Original’ Forbidden Dry Cider as well as their Strawberry Mint Dry Cider
- We opted for the original. The cider pours a clear straw colour & is a little dry on the palette – which i prefer
(7) ANGRY ORCHARD
- Containing 5%alc./vol, this crisp and refreshing cider offers sweet apple notes up front with a subtle dryness to finish off the palette.
- There is a hint of Fuji apples adding a layer of complexity and brings out fresh apple aromas and sweet flavours
(8) DUXBURY CIDER
- Working in small batches, each Duxbury Cider is hand-produced ciders is a culmination of more than a decade of craftsmanship and ingenuity
The event also offered Wood Fired Pizzas with choices of : Butter Chicken Pizza, Margherita Pizza, Pepperoni Pizza & Funghi
(9) MAGNOTTA CIDER
(10) CALVADOS BOULARD
- Last but not least, Calvados Boulard, a 40%vol that we saved for the end! The Calvados Boulard is all natural, no additives and is made with 48 apple varieties from France.
Special thanks to Chris for setting us up with VIP tickets. We really enjoyed the VIP session and were glad we got a head start to visit multiple vendors with little to no line up before the hustle & bustle at the evening session. In terms of my favourite cider, it was without a doubt Double Trouble with their “Grow a Pear Cider’! Hope you enjoyed my recap of this year’s festival!
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Our admission to the event was complimentary but Foodinthecitytoronto.com remains unbiased in our content.