With The Northern Spy, a Denver Cider Empire Makes Its First Move Into the Southeast

The Northern Spy

2812 Erwin Road, #104, Durham

929-321-0203

“We don’t try to follow the trends,” says Ivana Muszkiewicz, general manager of The Northern Spy, a new Durham restaurant and bottle shop from the Denver-based Stem Ciders. 

The cider empire came South earlier this year, launching distribution about two months before The Northern Spy’s opening in April, after Stem Ciders co-founders (and Michigan natives) Eric Foster and Phil Kao acquired, shuttered, and repurposed Black Twig Cider House. Though Stem Ciders is known throughout the West and Midwest for its dry, freshly pressed, not-too-sweet style, The Northern Spy—named after an apple common to Michigan—is the cidery’s first bar outside of Colorado and its first bottle shop in the Southeast. 

With upward of a hundred different varietals from the U.S. to Spain to France available for purchase, it boasts one of the most diverse and extensive cider portfolios in North Carolina.  

Muszkiewicz, a thirteen-year restaurant industry vet, was working as a Stem Ciders sales rep in Chicago before she moved to Raleigh in mid-February on a sixty-degree day. (She wasn’t mad about it). The company also enlisted chef Eric Lee of Acreage Ciderhouse & Eatery, a sister restaurant in Lafayette, Colorado, to develop The Northern Spy’s concept and design a gastropub menu to complement the cider offerings. 

Muszkiewicz, who will soon begin studying for her Sicera (i.e., Pommelier) certificate, has celiac disease, an autoimmune condition that led her to cider. But while cider has proven a viable alternative to beer for the millions of American with gluten sensitivities, it’s also becoming a movement unto itself. 

Even so, misperceptions abound. For starters, many Americans still think of it as the non-alcoholic apple juice seasoned with cinnamon sticks and served around the holidays. And so-called hard ciders are often presumed to fall along the lines of the stereotypically sugary American version, derived from cheaper-to-produce apple-juice concentrate. 

“Europeans say they hate American cider,” Muszkiewicz says. 

Stem Ciders focuses on balancing pH with natural sugars from the apples to create a base flavor profile that’s neither overly acidic nor sweet. Since some Colorado apples tend to be more tart and bitter and produce less juice, Stem Ciders sources most of its apples from the Pacific Northwest. Cider made from fresh-pressed juice comes at a higher price point, but, as with wine and beer, the higher price is usually worth it, especially considering how it might be paired with food.

Lee and Muszkiewicz tested each item on The Northern Spy’s menu to ensure that salty dishes could complement dryer ciders, or sweeter dishes would work with sweeter, fruit-forward ferments. The fried chicken sandwich, which was devoid of salt and grease, was served atop Lee’s rendition of a classic buttermilk biscuit—a flaky, buttery pastry of folded laminated dough much like a croissant, and accompanied with sweet apple butter and savory fennel slaw. The omission of salt may have yielded a few mixed reviews, but the crisp dryness of the L’Acier, one of the six ciders offered on tap, had just enough funk and was sharp enough on the finish to make it work—a balancing act that could have easily been overpowered by excessive saltiness. 

The farm-to-table menu, a nod to some of the Acreage’s Basque Country influences, is dynamic, encouraging patrons to get creative with their pairings, whether traversing the vibrant cider spectrum (from dry to fruity), or navigating the bar’s batch cocktail list (a cider spritz, promenade, or Pimm’s Cup). 

“How exciting is it that we have an artisanal bologna sandwich?” asks Muszkiewicz. 

Indeed, the mortadella, aka “fried bologna,” is made from the heritage-breed pigs of Fra’Mani Handcrafted Foods in California and served with two kinds of cheddar, cider caramelized onions, house-made pickles, and French’s yellow mustard. It makes a few other appearances on the menu and can be added to pretty much anything—including that fried chicken sandwich. 

“Why would we half-ass our potential for pairings if we’ve put this much effort and intention into the food and ciders and bottle shop?” she says. “You could just have hotdogs and premade sandwiches, or you could elevate people’s experiences from start to finish.”

TASTING NOTES

Optimize your experience at The Northern Spy by enlisting friends and pairing different ciders from the bottle shop’s collection with items from the menu. Here are a few combinations to try. 

Etienne Dupont: an apple-forward, unfiltered, unpasteurized dry cider from Normandy, France, paired with the bold umami flavor of the cashews, which are dusted with shitake mushroom powder and Korean chili flakes.

Txopinondo Sagarnotegia Cidre: a chewier, funkier cider from the French Basque Country with a little blue cheese on the nose, paired with the Ploughman’s Lunch, a hodgepodge platter with myriad possibilities for perfect bites, featuring cured meats, artisan cheeses, sliced apples, apple butter, cider onions, house-made pickles, and fresh bread. 

Sparkling Strawberry Cider (from Botanist & Barrel): a bright and refreshingly tart unfiltered local cider that, despite a strong, berry-forward aroma, isn’t sweet, but has an exceptionally easy-to-drink unripened strawberry flavor profile, which, when paired with the fried bologna sandwich, cuts through the gooey richness and makes you rethink pretty much everything you thought you knew about both cider and bologna. 

Contact food and digital editor Andrea Rice at arice@indyweek.com. 

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