Cold Hollow Cider Mill: the Route 100 stop built on pressed apples and doughnuts
Photo: Ethan Long, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
On a foliage weekend, the parking lot at Cold Hollow Cider Mill on Route 100 in Waterbury Center can look like a stadium lot. People come for cider pressed on site and for the cider doughnuts, which the mill fries throughout the day.
The business has been around since the 1970s and is one of the anchors of the stretch of Route 100 between Interstate 89 and Stowe. It sits a few miles north of Ben & Jerry’s factory, and many visitors make a loop of the two.
How the cider gets made
Cold Hollow presses apples from orchards around the Northeast, depending on the year’s crop. Visitors can watch the press through windows when it is running. Apple cider in Vermont is sold either raw or treated; most commercial sellers use ultraviolet light or heat pasteurization to meet federal safety rules, and the mill has used UV treatment.
Cider is only part of the operation. The mill store sells jellies, cider vinegar, maple products and hard cider, and it runs a cafe. The doughnuts are probably the biggest draw.
The seasonal calendar
Business peaks in September and October, when foliage traffic and the apple harvest overlap. Summer and the winter ski season bring steady crowds too, because Route 100 is the main road to Stowe Mountain Resort.
For Vermont agriculture, operations like Cold Hollow show how processing and agritourism add value to a crop. A bushel of apples sold as cider, doughnuts and jelly to visitors earns far more than a bushel sold wholesale.
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