Pressing now: Arkansas Black, Winesap
Cold Creek is our orchard, cider house and farm kitchen, seven miles southeast of Augusta, and everything we sell grew on its forty acres (the bees would like it known that the honey is theirs). You can pick on weekends, drink what we pressed, and eat at the long table if there is a seat.
Nora walks the rows every Tuesday morning
Updated Tuesday 29 September. Rows open Friday to Sunday, 9 until 5. When a variety says done it is done, and we would rather you read it here than hear it at the gate from someone holding an empty basket.
Pressed in October, poured until the barrel is dry
Wild yeast, no sugar, dry enough that some people hand it back.
Whatever the storm brought down, pressed the same day. The storm writes the recipe.
Quince from the north row, finished with honey from our own hives.
Twelve cases made from the deep cellar. One bottle per table.
The tasting room pours Thursday from 4 until 9, Friday and Saturday from noon until 10, and Sunday from 11 until 5. A flight of all four is $14. Cider goes to guests 21 and over with ID, and everyone else gets fresh-pressed juice, which is what the cider was before it had ideas.
Mid-August to the end of October
Weighed at the gate on the way out. The picking poles and baskets wait at the wagon stop.
Half-peck, about 5 lb, $12. Peck, about 10 lb, enough for two pies and a week of lunches, $22.
Kieffer pears and quince $2 a pound. Pumpkins 50¢ a pound, never more than $15 however big.
October Saturdays and Sundays, ages 12 and up. Includes the wagon to the far rows and a cup of cider. Fridays are free.
Fifty covers, one seating, whatever is ready
Eli writes the menu on Thursday night with the week's crates around his feet, and it is printed on Friday morning. Everything on it comes off our forty acres or from a farm we can drive to before breakfast.
Cider pairing $28. Tell us about allergies when you book.
One menu, five courses at seven, family style, and nothing to choose, which some guests find restful and others find alarming. Most leave later than they meant to.
A shorter midday menu from whatever the week gave us. Hail in June means squash in October, and we say so on the card.
Cider, bread and a board of things we cured ourselves. Walk in without booking and stay until the light goes off the hill.
K-State horticulture. Fourteen harvests on these rows, and the one who decides when a variety is done.
Nine years in Kansas City kitchens before coming home. Writes the menu Thursday night.
Certified Cider Professional. Pours the flights and knows which barrel is ready.
Drawn to scale, with the creek along the bottom
Twenty-five minutes from Andover, thirty-five from downtown Wichita. On weekends the wagon leaves the stop by the kitchen every twenty minutes and goes round the far rows, so nobody has to carry a peck the whole way back.
Swipe sideways to see the whole farm.
Thirty-five minutes from Wichita, on a road that gives up on pavement a while before it reaches us. Dust in September, mud in October, so wear the old boots.
From Wichita: US-400 east through Augusta. Four miles past town, turn south at our sign and follow the gravel down to the creek. Park on the grass by the press house.
Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Day, and New Year's Day. If lightning or a storm warning is out we close the rows, keep the press house open, and post it here by 10 am.
Weather right now: nothing out, rows and press house open
Augusta
US-400
Wichita 20 mi
El Dorado 8 mi
Cold Creek Orchard
Press house, September to December
Pick your own, mid-August to October
January to August
Tables and timed entries book here, or call (316) 555-0104 and one of us picks up, usually with something sticky on our hands. The day before, we text you the gravel-road directions, since map apps get the last mile wrong. Park on the grass and check in at the press house window, where entry tickets are scanned too. With fifty seats and one seating, we hold a table for twenty minutes past its time and then it goes to the walk-in list, who have been watching the door.
Not on Fridays. October Saturdays and Sundays need a timed entry because the rows fill; anything left is sold at the gate from 9.
Yes, on a leash in the rows and on the patio. Dogs stay out of the kitchen and the press house.
Children are welcome on the patio, in the rows and at the long table. Cider is poured only to guests 21 and over with ID; there is fresh juice for everyone else.
Light rain, we pick. Lightning or a storm warning closes the rows and we post it here by 10 am, since nobody should be standing under a tree in that. Timed entries move to any open window that season.
Cards and cash at the gate, the bar and the kitchen. No checks.