A few weeks ago our Head of Sales and Marketing, Andrew Cross flew to the USA to promote Dunkertons Organic Cider Company stateside. He flew from London Heathrow on Saturday the 18th of January and landed in Houston, Texas with time to prepare for the busy two weeks ahead.

On Tuesday the 21st January the trip kicked off with several trade visits to outlets in Austin. Andy was accompanied by Lucy from a local US distributor called Winebow. He sampled our organic Black Fox, Perry and Dry with liquor stores, grocers, including Whole Foods, and on-premise restaurants. Our Black Fox and Perry proved extremely popular as everyone who sampled ended up buying! The next day Andy headed to a new city to continue sampling Dunkertons joined by Pascal from 'Pioneer'. Once again in San Antonio, Texas, our Black Fox and Perry went down delightfully with the US audience.

The 23rd and 24th of January saw two packed days of the Winesellers conference in New Orleans. Winesellers are our US distributor and have been for 3 years now. The conference was held in a ‘speed-dating’ format, with people going from table to table to discuss and taste the different ciders and wines. Andy had the opportunity to meet each salesperson from Winesellers across the US and he presented Dunkertons Organic Cider to them and did a tasting of Black Fox, Perry, Breakwells Seedling and Dry. Winesellers have made a time-lapse video of the event, watch it here. (If you look closely you may even spot Andy!)

Andy then headed west to the city of San Francisco. On Tuesday the 28th January he visited outlets in San Francisco with Chelsea, a local Winesellers representative. They sampled Black Fox, Breakwells, Perry and Dry with convenience stores and grocers. This time, our single-variety cider, Breakwells Seedling, proved to be just as popular as Black Fox and Perry. In the evening, they attended a ‘Meet the Cider Maker’ event at a cider bar called Upcider in San Francisco as part of Cider Con conference and Bay Area Cider Week. Wednesday was once again full of sampling to local San Francisco businesses and in the evening Andy hosted an event at Cider Con giving suppliers a chance to samples their ciders to the attendees.


On the 30th January, Cider Con officially began! Andy watched several seminars including one called ‘Nielsen World Cider Trends.’ In the afternoon he sampled at Crooked City Cider bar in Oakland and in the evening he attended Redfield in Oakland who stock Dunkertons and ran a sampling evening with Tom Oliver from Oliver's Cider and Perry.

As the trip drew to a close on the 31st of January, Andy spent his last full day at Cider Con attending various seminars and networking with attendees. This was also the day Gabe Cook, aka The Ciderologist, ran a tasting seminar with Tom Oliver, Felix Nash (Fine Cider) and Susanna Forbes (from Drink Britain). Gabe sampled Breakwells Seedling along with Tom Oliver and Little Pomona cider.

Finally on Saturday the 1st February, it was time for Andy to say goodbye to the USA after a long fortnight of travel and work. He spent his final few hours before flying home taking a sidecar tour of San Francisco, travelling to world-famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, but of course, not without taking Dunkertons with him!