Two K Farms is well on its way to another successful summer and fall season as the Suttons Bay Cidery plans to release its Hopp’d Original Cider at the end of this month.
“It’s one of the original ciders we made here. We add various hops to them, dry hop, and some pellets. We stopped producing that for a couple of years, and then we just brought it back in a small batch,” Two K Ciders coowner Max Koskela said.
The original cider will have a new look inside a glass bottle instead of a can. Two K is using their homegrown Heritage American apples with native hops to make the dry style cider that is expected to be release before Labor Day.
This small batch spirit success will gauge if Two K wants to bring the rare cider back on the market more often.
“We are keeping things fresh and giving our customers variety,” Koskela said.
Two K Farms will also be selling a new cider release “Wixom” a crab apple cider and barrelaged apple wine. This is another limited release product.
“We had the ingredients to make it and it’s been in the works for a while,” Koskela said.
Koskela says successful business for Two K this summer has been dependent on the weather. Dry and hot temperatures bring customers in, while wet weather has been keeping them away. Two K Farms has been focusing on bringing in music on Saturday’s for the crowd of visitors and locals who stroll in.
“We had quite an influx of people in the area. It’s a little bit down in terms of traffic so far this season,” Koskela said.
From tree to wine: Meet Two K winemakers Adam Satchwell and Kurt Barry head the winemaking operation at Two K Farms.
Satchwell is nearing retirement and might either work at WalMart or head to the Caribbean to drink some rum, he said jokingly. Satchwell has been in the wine industry since 1976 when he packed his bags from Kalamazoo to California. He started going to school at Santa Rosa Junior College to get a degree in viticulture and then attended the University of California Davis for enology. Satchwell is originally from Ohio and was raised in Ann Arbor.
“I always considered this area home and wanted to get back here. And eventually I did,” he said.
Satchwell settled back in Michigan after making wine in California, New York and Virginia. Satchwell was the winemaker for Shady Lane for 16 years before joining Two K Farms in 2017.
“(Michigan wine) we’re moving out of adolescence,” Satchwell said. “When I first came back to Michigan, I got a job in a store down in Dearborn, managing a wine store. And shortly after I got back, MSU was doing a tasting for a large group, 2,000 people ... We’re doing this big tasting, and somebody asked me, ‘So what do you think of Michigan wines?’ and me, being maybe not the brightest person in the world, I said they suck. It was an honest opinion back in 2000.”
He admits things got a little ugly.
“There was a lot of promise. There were some nice wines being made, but there was a lot of crap and a lot of learning to do,” he said. “When you saw a bad wine in the area ... it used to be the exception when you saw a good wine. It’s completely flipfl opped. We’ve figured out what works in the area and what we like to do.”
Satchwell has been working with cider since 1981 in Mendocino County, California.
“Now I’m here playing with some of the most impressive apples.”
Satchwell and Barry are working on a combination of things, including packaging, so all the tanks are empty for the upcoming harvest.
“We are getting through the process of cleaning up the ciders and the wines, any filtering that might need to be done,” Barry said. “We ferment throughout the year because we’ve got a certain tank capacity there and usually we’ve got more apples than we’ve got tanks.”
They’ll press apples and send the juice off for storage and bring it back later.
Barry has been at Two K for two years and shadows Satchweil throughout the entire process from harvest to pressing to packaging. He studied viticulture at Michigan State University and fell in love with wine from an internship in Italy. He had a small stint at another Leelanau winery and then went over to Chateau Grand Traverse for six years as the assistant winemaker.
He eventually landed at Two K because he also loved cider.
“It’s a mix between the creativity and also being able to work with heritage varieties that have so much history behind them,” Barry explained why he enjoys the industry.
