From bee to bottle - Cooney's bring home the cider

Almost a century ago, the founder of the co-operative movement, the far-seeing Sir Horace Plunkett, who was Ireland’s first head of the Department of Agriculture, planted an orchard on the family estate at Dunsany in a cider production experiment. It didn’t take off, but the remains of the orchard are still to be seen on the Kilmessan road.
Now, 100 years on, the Cooney family in neighbouring Kilmessan has brought the idea to fruition, growing their own apple trees at Ringlestown House, and producing a craft cider that has just been launched to the market. Visitors to this year's Bloom in the Phoenix Park were among the first to sample Cooney’s Irish Cider, with the tagline turning the harvest to amber, from Cooney Family Orchards. The tasting notes describe it as a medium dry cider, with a crispy fruity finish.
When Pat and Marie Cooney and family sold their Gleeson Group Tipperary Water business to C&C some years back, they held onto their cider production in Borrisoleigh, where Devil’s Bit cider was produced. It was always their intention to develop it further, but they were busy concentrating on their new project, the Boann Distillery and Boyne Brewhouse outside Drogheda.
“Then one of our wholesalers in the west of Ireland was looking for a new cider,” Marie Cooney explains. “We always had the idea of developing our own orchards and label, but when he said he would stock it for us, it gave us that extra push.”
The Ringlestown orchards contain four apple varieties. The first two planted were Michelin and Dabinett, followed by Jilly and Yarlington Mill. Planting began in 2008.
“We planted 3,000 root stock from Holland, and six months later, 1,200 root stock from Kilkenny,” Marie explains. A further 2,300 were planted last year. The planting process involved drainage, making a hole, planting the stock, staking the tree and putting in rabbit guards.
Then, for pollination purposes, bumblebees had to be added to the equation. As well as that, Maire began beekeeping with neighbour Damien Murray, and they caught their first hive last May, with four now. The combination of honeybees and bumblebees carry out the pollination.
In May, the apple trees blossom, and by this time of year, there are baby apples, which will be ready for harvest in October.
“Blossom time is an important one, and heavy frost or hail stones can do damage,” Marie explains.
There are 30 acres of orchard in Kilmessan, with an older orchard of 15 acres associated with Devil’s Bit in Borrisoleigh, totalling 6,500 apple trees. By year three, nine tonnes of apple were being harvested, the following year, 15, up to 60, 140, and this year, 180 tonnes.
“We aim for 15-20 tonnes an acre,” Marie says. At the beginning, the apples were hand picked, but as trees got bigger and more bountiful, machines were needed. She has a shaker, for shaking the apples off the trees, a blower for blowing them out from under the trees onto the grass, a harvester to pick them up, and a teleporter in which employee Jimmy O’Neill transports them to a waiting truck.
Polish native Kazik Zuchowski, who has been with Cooneys for 12 years, maintains the orchards and ensures they are healthy and disease free.
The apples are transported to Tipperary, where they are washed, pressed, fermented, becoming juice, which is then brought back to Drogheda for chilling, filtering and the carbonation process, before canning or bottling.
“There are no artificial flavours, colours or sweeteners,” Marie explains. “So it’s a natural product, low in calories.”
Cooney’s Irish Cider is already doing quite well in the west of Ireland, just a couple of months after launching, and Tesco has taken the first production batch. A second production was bottled and canned at the Boann Distillery and Boyne Brewhouse last week.
Boann Distillery is a family company, born and believed in by Pat and Marie Cooney, along with their family, Sally-Anne, Celestine, Peter, Patrick and James. With a combined wealth of experience, including 40 years in the Irish drinks industry building up the Gleeson Group from a small independent bottler to a company with a turnover in excess of €300 million per annum, the Cooney family knows what it takes to create successful, premium brands.
It has always been a family dream to craft and distill their very own Irish whiskey, and they have combined the distillery with the Boyne Brewhouse, with its selection of 'legend beers' based on the Boyne Valley legends.
'To be able to add cider from our own orchards from the shadow of the Hill of Tara is something special,' added Marie Cooney.

 

(First published Inspire magazine, July 2017)