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

481: Totally Cider Tour: A Merry Visit to Tom Oliver's

December 10, 2025·45 min·4 clips

Tom Oliver explains why making perry is far harder than cider, calling perry makers 'criminally insane'.

Peri pears make trouble. The host opens with a loose Cider Chat welcome, then drifts into the Totally Cider Tour, cider and peri, and the pleasure of reaching Tom Oliver's. Tom Oliver is the guest, speaking from the Barrel Room at Oliver's Cider and Peri in Herefordshire. He gets into pears that fall, splat, dodge tidy harvest plans, and generally make a maker work for it. Winnells gets affection first. Tom calls it beautiful, then comes back to earth: if someone is vaguely disposed to it, he would pick them off the tree. Orchard rules have a way of softening when the fruit is awkward enough. That small correction gives the visit its bite. Peri asks for judgment, timing, and patience with fruit that does not behave. Cider sounds simpler beside it. Tom talks about cider as a blend-driven craft, where several apple varieties build balance, character, and sense in the mouth. One perfect apple sounds tempting, but his thinking keeps circling back to blends rather than one neat answer. Breeding still has a place, especially for varieties that can handle lower winter chill or push back against fungal pressure when the weather turns warm and wet. Peri, meanwhile, needs help. The conversation stays playful even when the work sounds punishing, especially when Tom jokes about people who choose pears needing help. Around the technical talk, the tour keeps showing up through lunch, poured cider and peri, and the relief of letting someone else manage the roads. The ending returns to home base. The host thanks Oliver Cider and Perry, points listeners toward a 2026 Blossom Time Totally Cider Tour visit to the UK, signs off toward Ciderville, and lets the cider song hang around a little longer.

As heard by us

A barrel-room chat that makes perry's stubbornness feel part of the charm.

Cider Chat follows a visit to Oliver's Cider and Perry in Herefordshire with a calm, unhurried look at why perry can be so hard to make. Rio Windcaller and Tom Oliver move from lunch and barrel-room hospitality into the practical side of pears, harvest, fermentation, and the…

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Why you'd press play

If you like cider trips where lunch, barrel-room talk, and maker perspective all spill together, press play.

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