Surprise! It's another cider post!

Seriously, I had such a rough time finding maple beers to get to this season. Luckily, the cider makers have come through for me. 

Maple syrup and hard cider has been one of my favorite flavor combinations since I first stumbled upon it. I'm excited to see how Shacksbury's Sugar Shack, today's cider, plays into the combo.

Shacksbury's based in the Champlain Valley (Addison County) of Vermont and is named after an old hamlet that was making cider in the area back in the 1840s. The cider they make is complex and organic.

I couldn't find Sugar Shack on Shacksbury's website (although I did track down this Instagram post!), so we'll let Untappd tell us about today's cider. Unfortunately, there's not much here. This just states the 5.5% ABV cider has "...maple and vanilla." My can provides a bit more of a story while letting us know it's made with vanilla bean paste instead of extract or artificial vanilla flavor.

The bouquet is a little drier, a little more Champagney than I thought it'd be. There's maple and vanilla here, sure, but the dry quality of the cider is much more prominent. Purrl, for her part, gave me can just six whiffs.

That dry quality is also prominent on Sugar Shack's palate. Beyond this, the apple shines through most brightly, juicy and crisp. The vanilla and maple seem like afterthoughts, but they do linger into the finish with the apple.

On the mouthfeel front, this is a cider. It's sharp and crisp. What more could you want here?

This is more of a winter flavor than an autumnal one. I can see myself sitting before my window, staring out at falling snow as it quietly blankets the ground, really enjoying a can of this cider.

As it stands, Shacksbury's Sugar Shack is short and moderately sweet. It'd doesn't pack as much maple as I want, but it's plenty fine at 8.0/10.