CleverRoot

2 0 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t MEET YOUR MAKERS Simon House VP of Sales for ACE Cider in Sonoma County, California THE BRITISH HAVE always loved cider, and ACE Founder Jeffrey House was no exception when he moved to San Francisco from London in the late 1970s. Finding a dearth of cider and British craft beer, Jeffrey began exporting his favorite beverages from his homeland to the States. But as Simon House, Jeffrey's son and Vice President of Sales for ACE Cider, recounts, Jeffrey's business was shuttered after he "became too good at his job and the brands he repped were bought out by larger stateside companies." Jeffrey instead decided to start his own cider company, and ACE Cider was born in Sonoma County in 1993. Although cider had been the most popular alcoholic beverage in the U.S. from the country's inception until the mid-1800s, it was not the popular beverage it is today when Jeffrey started his new venture. "The irony is at the time he thought craft beer was too risky," Simon says with a laugh. Jeffrey hired a local Sonoma winemaker to help him craft the cider—made with a standard apple that was medium-dry—and began to replace the British ciders he had previ- ously distributed in bars in the West Coast. ACE currently produces nine styles of cider, from dry to semi-sweet and barrel-aged to unfiltered. Their products' popularity with the gluten-free crowd, Simon notes, is partially responsible for rapid growth that's resulted in the company being roughly "five times bigger than it was five years ago." Simon and his brothers are now all involved in the company: in addition to Simon serving as VP of Sales, his older brother Jason helps Jeffrey run the company while their younger brother Jeremy is part of the sales force. ACE's newest offering, an unfiltered blood orange cider called ACE Space, features their mother's face on the bottleneck—a reminder of their family roots, as well as a nod to her cameo in the famous Star Wars cantina scene. Dustin Delano Maine Lobsterman in Monhegan, Maine FORMED IN 2013, the Maine Lobster Marketing Collabora- tive (MLMC) was created to promote the Maine lobster industry while highlighting the sustainable practices coming out of the state. Funded by the license fees paid by Maine's boat owners and fishermen, MLMC combines the efforts of lobstermen, dealers and processors to raise awareness of the delicious crustacean. Dustin Delano has been lobstering with his father since he was five, and bought his first lobster boat along with 25 traps at age ten. Now 26, Delano is joining other members of the lobster industry in traveling the country to share fascinating facts with the public as part of MLMC's "Maine After Mid- night" initiative. "Even though Maine lobster is well-known for its freshness and taste, a lot of people don't know how it's harvested," Delano explains. Most lobster boats use hundreds of traps, but the lobstermen are very particular about what they catch. Female lobsters carrying eggs are marked with a notch on their right fin and sent back to the ocean. This prevents the lobster population from decreasing, and alerts other lobstermen that the female is car- rying eggs. The time of the year also mat- ters. From July to November, lobsters shed their hard shells and grow softer, larger shells. The space between the lobster and the new shell fills with seawater, which "brines" the lobster and results in more ten- der meat. Maine is promoting this variety as a new alternative to the typical hard-shell lobster. "It's nice to see the industry getting the recognition it deserves [by] telling people a little bit about what we do to bring their food to them," Delano adds. Introducing the people across the country behind the food we love to eat by Jesse Hom-Dawson ■cr PHOTO COURTESY OF SIMON HOUSE PHOTO COURTESY OF MLMC

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