Our Story
How it all started
The College Years
20 years ago, my roommates invested in two plastic buckets, some apple juice and a few pounds of sugar. We picked up some random champagne yeast and a pack of raisins to dive headfirst into our first home fermenting experience. (I had no money so I was an innocent bystander along for the ride.) It was a learning process that turned out poorly. After waiting months, it was finally done fermenting… or at least the airlock stopped percolating. We didn’t rack it or age the cider, we didn’t put it in a barrel or add fresh juice or botanicals to it.. We simply tried it. Hmmm… The Cider was hard, real hard….and even harder to swallow. It was horrifically dry and didn’t taste like anything I’d ever had. To our dismay it didn’t taste like apples at all! We set out to make a refreshing, thirst quenching beverage with lots of bubbles and…. failed miserably. At that point I decided I hated cider and didn’t ever want to drink it again.
Fast Forward to
Growing A Young Family…
And a Local Company
But alas, all things change, and just a few years ago when my kids and I rediscovered the joy of being in nature together, we went out hiking and ended up climbing wild apple trees and picking crab apples. Turns out, talking about how we grow our food and use it was a great discussion and a fruitful time for our young family that yielded some great juice. Then it hit me. I wanted my kids to experience their childhood with aspects that I was blessed with. I wanted them to be in nature and work toward a unified goal, learning about life together as a family. To her credit, my wife never allowed me to sell the fermenting equipment. That day, Mahalo cider was born.
Over the past few years our cider has grown in depth, flavor, and complexity. Like some humans, cider simply get’s better with time. This might be due to the many hours, days and years dedicated to finding our favorite yeasts to bring out the best flavors possible. But dont’ think we’ve arrived, oh no, we are always tweaking; adjusting and dreaming, to bring the best cider to our community. Why? It’s simple; we love this town, we’re part of this community and we want to share the Mahalo Life with you.
Mahalo! We hope you enjoy a pint!
Levi Bagge
Thankful for our people
Gratitude & Looking Forward
The reality is, we simply couldn’t have done this alone and we are compelled to share with you how our dear friends and family have supported us through this endeavor.
We want to thank the entire Mahalo Family who have supported, prayed and rooted for us!
You gave us kind but real feedback, and even gifted us with lots of tips! Mahalo! We appreciate that! We truly couldn’t have done it without you.
We look forward to a future where we can continue to craft the best cider we can and bring it right to your door!
Spreading Mahalo
Because of our support, your prayers, your orders, and your friendship, we are pleased to announce we give back to our community. Proceeds from Mahalo Cider Sales directly help support volunteers, aid workers and emergency-services that impact our community in a positive way. We want to help leave a positive impact on our community and encourage those around us to live grateful lives together.
Thank you for your partnership in this, mahalo!