Photography by Daniel Schwartz Among the first tasks European colonists in the Massachusetts Bay Colony set out to do—400 years ago—was to plant apple trees. Why? Because in Colonial America water was not safe to drink, so hard cider was the most common beverage, such that even children drank it in a diluted form. Google the words “cider” and “founding fathers” and you might be surprised to discover that the great minds who dreamed up the architecture of our independent republic were fueled by gallons and gallons of cider (and Madeira and rum, too). But the late 1800s brought cider’s…
