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Albany

Alejandro del Peral admits hard cider is "the ugly stepchild" of the craft beer movement. He embraces it.

"We're kinda riding the coattails of the craft beer movement," said del Peral, the owner and founder of Albany-based Nine Pin Cider. And those coattails have been lucrative: In the last four years, he's watched his company — and the statewide hard cider market — explode in popularity in New York, where an abundance of apple farms and varieties has positioned the state as a national leader in producing the beverage.

On Saturday, Nine Pin hosted 15 other cider producers and roughly 800 fans of the beverage at Gathering of New York Farm Cideries, a sort of birthday party for the state's cider sector. In 2013, New York state, recognizing the economic potential of being a national leader in apple production, passed a law to license cideries that exclusively use state crops.

Since that time, "there's been a fantastic response," del Peral said. "We were struggling to produce it fast enough."

Nine Pin has already expanded its distribution into Massachusetts. Del Peral said the biggest hurdle right now is educating people to the diversity of cider, much like the massive transformation craft beer underwent two decades ago.

It certainly helps that New York has the most diverse crops of apples in the nation. "It really is the dream spot," he said. And if New York is the dream spot, Albany is "the dream location," he said, noting the city's proximity to a variety of apple farms.

At Kaneb Orchards in St. Lawrence County, Ed Kaneb Jr. has in recent years used his family farm to produce hard cider and cider donuts. His father started the farm decades ago, but as fuel became more expensive, it was increasingly difficult to make a profit hauling fruit to local farmers markets. The company, which is situated only a few miles from the border, wants to make Canada a focal point of its growth strategy, but regulations on the transfer of alcoholic beverages has made that difficult.

"It's been a lot of work," said Kaneb Orchards Marketing Coordinator Nancy Badlam. Still, the two said there's work ahead. In smaller, less-populated reaches of the state like St. Lawrence County, building a brand requires spending many weekends trucking products to conventions and shows across the state.

But it's been worth it: "There's a revolution of people drinking cider again," she said.

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