I still remember the first club I ever joined.  It was called the Tufty Club and I was four.  Tufty was a red squirrel, nattily dressed in a little blue jacket and he was all about road safety.  I remember the excitement of receiving my membership package in the mail.  There was a leaflet with instructions from Tufty about the safest way to cross a road, some stickers (a big, big deal in the early 1970’s) and a pin featuring Tufty’s smiling face that you could wear to identify with other club members.  I hoarded the stickers, solemnly practiced the road crossing and wore the pin with pride.

Over the years I’ve been a member of many, many clubs.  When distilled down to their basic essence, clubs are all about community, common goals and shared interests.  Since we opened the cidery, last May, we’ve found ourselves to be part of a whole new community.  People we would have in all likelihood otherwise never have met.  So to capitlise on that and share our common interest in all things cider we’ve decided we really should have our own club.

Its going to be free to join – all that’s required is a willingness to purchase three cases of cider a year (at club rates).  The cider will be put aside for you for when you’re going to need it most (high days and holidays) and by joining the club you can ensure that even when we’re sold out at the end of the season, there’ll be a case of cider with your name on it, sitting in our production room, waiting for you to pick it up.  Close enough to Christmas to enjoy it at all the festivites but not so soon that you drink it all and have to find other hostess gifts for your friends.

You’ll be able to pick the type of cider you’d like in your box but we also want to share our love of cider with our club friends by trying out small batch runs in the club boxes.  We’ll use the boxes to distribute special batches when there really isn’t enough to sell it through the tasting room, try out new blends and recipes to get your feedback on what you think should be on our cider menu and share little surprises of stuff we think goes really well with cider.

We have lots of ideas about things we’d like to do with the club but making sure club members get first dibs at the dinners and events we hold at the cidery is up there.  A club party is also a given.

And who knows we might even get our own club pin?

More information about the cider club and a link to join is on our website – https://www.fraservalleycider.ca/cider-club/

Alternatively you can sign up in the tasting room when we open on May 20.