When you meet the fifth generation of an apple-farming dynasty, you expect their products to be pretty special with all of those years of knowledge passed down, and the results at Mock Red Hill in Victoria's Mornington Peninsula don't disappoint.
We tasted through the family-company's range of ciders and sparkling and still fruit juices and found that there is in fact a lot you can do with apples. The cider range starts at with a Dry Cider that packs a hefty 8% alcohol volume and is extremely crisp on the palate. Next is the Classic Cider which is made from pink lady apples and is Mock Red Hill's best seller thanks to its being an extremely well balanced drop. Lastly the Sweet Cider is made from granny smiths, and is more of a sweet apple taste rather than a generic syrupy taste which you can get with other ciders. Each of these ciders are a great showcase for the variance in different types of apples.
For those on an alcohol detox, Mock Red Hill also has a still and sparkling apple juice and very newly added addition of a sparkling pear juice. These sparkling variants taste nothing like the bottles you find in supermarkets- instead they are genuinely like liquified fruit with a spritz, so again you are not just tasting sugar. "That tastes like a pear," were the first words from my husband when he sipped on the sparkling pear juice, and that simple description is the really best way to articulate what we were tasting!
The Bio-Dynamically farmed fruit used to make these beverages are also used in an ingenious snack food. Rather than offering dehydrated or dried fruit to snack on at the office, Mock Red HIll have a Totally Pure Fruits range of freeze dried fruits which ensures that each piece of fruit still contains fibre and almost all of its nutrients. Crunching into these freeze dried snacks was a completely different experience from the soggy dried fruit that I was used to. Again, these apple chips actually tasted like apple, which is so much more than a standard sweet taste.
All of these products are available for tasting at the Farm Gate store which is run by the smiling Sheryn Mock who continues to innovate by pushing for the successful sparkling juice line, and where we also met her dad Neville Mock- the 4th generation orchardist whose fruit speaks for itself. The Farm Gate store has recently been renovated and is open all year round.
Website: Mock Red Hill
Twitter: @MockRedHill
For those on an alcohol detox, Mock Red Hill also has a still and sparkling apple juice and very newly added addition of a sparkling pear juice. These sparkling variants taste nothing like the bottles you find in supermarkets- instead they are genuinely like liquified fruit with a spritz, so again you are not just tasting sugar. "That tastes like a pear," were the first words from my husband when he sipped on the sparkling pear juice, and that simple description is the really best way to articulate what we were tasting!
The Bio-Dynamically farmed fruit used to make these beverages are also used in an ingenious snack food. Rather than offering dehydrated or dried fruit to snack on at the office, Mock Red HIll have a Totally Pure Fruits range of freeze dried fruits which ensures that each piece of fruit still contains fibre and almost all of its nutrients. Crunching into these freeze dried snacks was a completely different experience from the soggy dried fruit that I was used to. Again, these apple chips actually tasted like apple, which is so much more than a standard sweet taste.
All of these products are available for tasting at the Farm Gate store which is run by the smiling Sheryn Mock who continues to innovate by pushing for the successful sparkling juice line, and where we also met her dad Neville Mock- the 4th generation orchardist whose fruit speaks for itself. The Farm Gate store has recently been renovated and is open all year round.
Website: Mock Red Hill
Twitter: @MockRedHill
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