Cider Chat · Ria Windcaller: Award-winning Cidermaker, Podcaster | Craft Beer Columnist

479: New York Cider Fest | Audio Snapshots

November 26, 2025·52 min·4 clips

Fumio explains how her palate transformed from sweet to dry cider through travel and podcast listening.

Episode 479 walks with a recorder. After a MassGolf ad, Rio Windcaller eases into the familiar Cider Chat welcome, for makers, enthusiasts, and trade folks. Then the episode loosens its shoulders. Rio says she has not walked around a cider fest recording patrons since 2019, and says the year is 2025. That six-year break gives the episode its feel: less formal interview, more return to listening in public. One listener takes the center of the conversation. Cider first showed up for her as something to order alongside her husband's beer, back when cocktails were her usual lane. Her taste did not flip overnight. It moved from sweet bottles toward semi-dry and dry cider as she drank more, learned more, and listened to the podcast. Rio clearly enjoys that part. The chat gets practical and a little wander-y, with talk of following New York cider on Instagram and finding the festival there. Travel keeps stretching the cider map. The listener mentions cider stops outside New York, including the Seattle area, West Coast ciders, Vermont around Middlebury, and wider New England. Dragon's Head, a Seattle tasting-room stop, and the Pacific Northwest all land as pieces of that map. Rio calls it music to her ears, and the moment works because it is so quick and easy: host, listener, festival floor, instant recognition. The episode closes with a cider song moving through orchards, blossoms, streets, palms, and the shared pleasure of liking cider together.

As heard by us

A loose, people-first cider-fest walkabout that stays strongest when it lets the crowd speak.

Cider Chat follows New York Cider Fest as a loose walk through a crowd that seems happy to keep talking. Rio Windcaller moves from person to person and lets the voices carry the episode, which gives it a plainspoken, on-the-ground feel.

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Why you'd press play

You want a cider-fest stroll with listener chatter, palate-shift talk, and travel notes from the cider circuit.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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