Call it a happy accident. For Father's Day in 2014, Grant Barnes asked for a home beer-making kit. Using various keywords, his wife, Jennifer, found what she thought was a beer kit on Amazon and ordered it. When Father's Day arrived, Barnes opened the package that had been delivered and there it was: a cider-making kit. Oops.
"It was like, 'OK, I guess we'll make cider,'" Grant says.
Early attempts in the home garage yielded "terrible" results, so the couple headed over to a newly opened Winco in the Valley and picked up a few ciders to sample.
"Smith & Forge was one we really liked, but it's not around anymore," Barnes recalls. "We also liked JK's Scrumpy. What we found is that we liked good cider, so we decided to press on. Looking back, we probably wouldn't have been successful with a brewery because we really don't like beer that much. Jennifer is happy to take the victory lap."
Make that 10 victory laps, as Inlander readers have now voted One Tree Hard Cider "Best Cidery" that many times, making this year's win its entry into the Best Of Hall of Fame.
"When you're in business, you're bound to deal with some failures along the way," Barnes notes. "But we're always pushing for quality. We just get so busy in our day-to-day personal and business lives that we sometimes forget that people actually appreciate what we're doing. It's good to get the validation."
One Tree Hard Cider offers a handful of core cider flavors that are available throughout the year, as well as limited-edition flavors that change with the seasons.
"People have latched on to the seasonals and, combined, they represent our bestsellers," Barnes says. "But the flavor that took us from being in a small warehouse to 'My gosh, we really have something here' was the lemon-basil. It's still our best single seller."
Other core ciders include huckleberry, boysenberry and mojito, while the seasonal roster includes the springtime lemon-berry and the summertime "Cider & Stripes," a mash-up of tart cherry and sweet apple flavors.
One Tree recently closed its downtown cider house because, Barnes says, "the parking got to be impossible." On March 6, it reopened at the production facility and warehouse that One Tree has occupied since 2020 near Gonzaga University.
"We have fewer seats, but we have the opportunity for outdoor seating," Barnes notes. "Plus, we have our own parking lot, so we're excited about the move."
2nd PLACE: Trailbreaker Cider
3rd PLACE: Inland Cider Mill
NORTH IDAHO'S BEST: CDA Cider Co., Coeur d'Alene
