Peace, Love & Cider

I sat at my desk, coffee by my elbow. As Nathan - my esteemed boss - muttered away to himself about case deliveries and canning costs, I wracked my brain for dinner recipe ideas. I had promised to cook: everyone at home was (somehow) busier than I, and in all honesty cooking has become somewhat of a hobby for me, as opposed to a chore.

My dilemma, however, evolved from the fact that I had intended on cooking a pasta dish. I’d already purchased half the needed ingredients. And yet, when I had swung by Woolworths before work, on the lookout for pasta, there was no pasta. Like, legitimately: the shelves were stripped. As I stood, stumped by the void before me, my phone buzzed with a text from my Mum:

Can you try and get some toilet paper?

To cut this particular anecdote short: the toilet paper aisle was, incredibly, more depressing than its once carb-stocked counterpart.

Of course, my inability to purchase even half a cup of curly wheat or a roll of loo paper is not, in reality, the end of the world. I altered my plan of attack regarding dinner, and made a note not to cook anything that might inspire too much movement ‘down stairs’. Both Nathan and myself had a good chuckle at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. And yet, I’d be lying if I claimed that it didn’t offer me a thoughtful pause: the world, it seems, has gone slightly insane.

Now, for context: when I'm not twiddling away hours penning social commentaries or shoving a camera in people's faces, I work as the Creative Director for Cedar Creek Cider. We're a small craft brewing company based in Thirlmere, Australia, and this week, we’ve dived head-first into the deep end. We’re brewing a new batch. Twenty-thousand litres of apple cider, ready to be canned come mid-April. Now, at first glance, this decision may seem a crazy one to be making, what with the current state of things being a state of low-key social and economic chaos. And I’ll be honest with you: when Nathan shared with me this game plan, I was momentarily taken aback. Quietly I wondered: Is this really the right time? Are we setting ourselves up for disaster? Certainly, I swallowed down a burst of anxiety.

But the anxiety passed, as anxiety has a habit of doing, and I soon realised two things. I realised that, yes, this is the right time, and that - perhaps more importantly - we’re not setting ourselves up for failure. Rather, we’re setting ourselves up for the future.

I won’t deny that we’re taking a risk. And yet, from the devastation of the Great Depression to the carnage of the 2007 Global Financial Crisis, the Alcoholic Beverage Manufacturing industry has proven itself to be a recession-resistant one. While other businesses have crumbled, beer, wine and booze have soldiered on. Over the past week alone, we’ve witnessed the restrictions placed upon Australia’s social sphere be tightened, seemingly by the hour. If people are to stay somewhat-sane, snippets of normality are invaluable, and for many Australians, cracking open a cold one is a part of that normality. Cedar Creek Cider’s mission has always been a clear one: to craft the best Australian apple cider for anyone who’s willing to give it a sip. Now more than ever, I believe that the best thing we can do is to continue chasing down that mission.

I also believe that we have a further obligation to press forward, one that goes beyond the desire to continue meeting our customers’ needs. As a small business, we have an obligation to ourselves.

I could write a novel based upon the struggles that Nathan has faced in his endeavour to bring Cedar Creek Cider to life. Don’t get me wrong: our cider is phenomenal. I wholeheartedly believe that this product can - and will - make a name for itself in the Australian craft cider scene. But it would be amiss of me to say that this belief is due only to how good the bubbles taste against the back of my tongue. I believe in the future of Cedar Creek Cider not because of the cider, but because of the man who makes it.

Nothing is simple, not when it comes to running a business, and especially when that business is one so small as Cedar Creek Cider. Success calls for more than just a good - or even great - product. Rather, success calls for resilience, for creativity, for patience and, of course, for dedication. And from the moment I met Nathan, it was clear to me that he carried these qualities in spades.

In early 2019, Nathan was stretched paper-thin, alternating between working night shifts at the Tahmoor Mines and brewing up Cedar Creek's first batch of cider. Less than two hours after he delivered the first round of orders, he received a phone call informing him that the packaged cans had begun to explode. This phone call was to be the first of many, and ultimately, Nathan was forced to send out a recall on the entirety of that first batch. In the words of the man himself: “Oh, it was fucked. No, it was not fun at all.”

Fast-forward to 2020, and Nathan has recently been nominated as a finalist in Awards Australia’s Small Business Achiever Awards. And although recent events have put a hold upon the formalities, the consensus implies that it’s recognition well-deserved. However, when I first asked Nathan how he navigated from can-catastrophe to nomination, he shrugged it off.

“It’s stressful, every time you go into business,” he reasoned. “Almost every day, there’s a new hurdle you have to jump over. I think an unlock is to put it into perspective.” It would seem, for Nathan at least, that this (rather large) setback was nothing more than a cider-soaked step forward. “I spend a fair amount of time trying to picture the future,” he went on. “Analysing what I see happening, how do we get there, what do I need to do. I tend to think about the long-term, rather than the day-to-day stuff.”

Struggles such as Nathan's are, generally speaking, a part of every small business owner's reality. In the grand scheme of things, COVID-19 is just another struggle - slightly larger in scale, granted, but another struggle nonetheless. Should we slow down now - or worse, grind completely to a halt - then what point was there in ever pushing through at all? In my humble opinion, it’s times such as these that sharpen into focus what lies at the core of a small business: why we do what we do, and the feats we’ve pulled out of the proverbial bag to become who we are today.

Another reality that has been sharpened is the essential nature of community, and of support. Cedar Creek Cider has been blessed beyond words by the generosity of the surrounding community. Not all local businesses have been quite so fortunate, and the divide between those supported and those less so has never been so evident. In this time of uncertainty, we - as individuals and as communities - have a powerful vote to cast regarding how many small businesses will emerge from this pandemic in one piece. On the one hand, we can exhaust ourselves agonizing over that slowly-depleting toilet paper stash, or punching on with old ladies in Woolworths to win that last remaining bag of San Remo fettuccine. Alternatively, we could consider dedicating some of this restless, anxious energy to helping the businesses who crafted our wedding reception grazing tables and catered our charity events keep their heads above water.

I am a loyal subscriber to the notion that everything in life happens for a reason. And although I may not always share Nathan’s seemingly-immortal optimism, I genuinely believe that there is good to come from this season of catastrophe. I believe that this is an opportunity to be reminded of the things that make human beings truly incredible. I’m not referring to how much annual income we can rake in, or how many stock market fluctuations we can accurately predict. Rather, I’m referring to our innate ability to adapt, to overcome, and to continue loving one another, even when everything around us seems intent on destroying this ability.

I once asked Nathan about his hopes for the future of our business. When I did so, he smiled and said, "Cedar Creek is everything I've grown up to know. It’s where I want my kids to grow up. This is a business that I want to grow, to support my family. Cedar Creek is where I wanna be for the rest of my life.”

And so, we will keep on keeping on. Nathan will can those twenty-thousand litres of cider, and I’ll still be here: taking photos, editing videos and writing long-winded blog articles about this business that has evolved from being just another stop along the road of my creative career to a place that has started to feel like home. Yes, the world may have gone somewhat insane, but in reality, there are some things in life that are more important than toilet paper. It’s up to each of us to keep things in perspective.