Franklin Cider Mill

You know, nothing says fall in Metro Detroit like fresh apple cider and some warm donuts. Franklin Cider Mill has been a family tradition for so many generations. Melanie Ratner is here to give us a taste of what's happening at the mill this season. Welcome. Good morning, ladies. How are you? Good. So we have a lot going on at the Cider Mill this year. We have some great new products, some great new things. We are open daily, and you can come today, actually watch our press being made of 5,000 apples per press. Wow. Watching them make our famous apple cider, which is our regular blend of a bunch of mixed wonderful apples. We have our pure honey crisp cider, which is unbelievable. We have beautiful gifts now that we are now offering for everybody. We have somebody locally who makes our candles for us in seven different scents. It's a pumpkin one. It's so good. Smells like fall. Delicious. I love a good fall candle. We have all of our famous, we have our Franklin Tannery when you come and visit us with all of our Michigan-made products. Anywhere from applesauces to salsas to apple butters to jams. And we now do these boxes, these gift boxes in a three-set or a two-set if you want to go to someone's house and bring a box. You know, along with that, you can bring your charcuterie board with our famous cheeses. That's a beautiful nod to Michigan and stunning charcuterie board. And we have them in a few different colors, so that's really beautiful. and we have our you know famous caramel apples and candy apples gotta get some candy apples when you go now Franklin Cider Mill it's a historical cider mill you've been around since the 1800s correct and we are still the original building we are like the only cider mill that we have the exact building that was there in the 1800s other than you know making sure that everything's going right it is the same if you went when you were a little child so now nothing has changed how do How do you keep things exciting there when you've been around for so long? So every year I look into something like what can we bring new, and this year we ended up bringing baby clothes. We brought baby clothes, we brought bibs, we brought unbelievable baskets we can make for people. We were making a cookbook, so by next season we'll have a cookbook with everyone's favorite recipes using all of our products that we carry at the Franklin Cider Mill. But I feel like our most famous product that we have is our hot donuts that are served hot only. And they are coming off the press every second. I love that. Love, love, love that. So, isn't that great? Have you ever been surprised at something that you created and then the public just like leaped right on it? I feel like every year when we come in and we bring a new product, people are just so excited. And they think every year when they come in, something is new. So what I try to do is, in our Franklin Favorites thing, which is downstairs, which is right across from our famous Cider Dogs that you can get grilled on the weekends. Ooh, a Cider Dog. I know you gotta have it. It's an all-beef hot dog. It's delicious. The buns are grilled. In our, I call it like our swag shop, we have now brought in the reusable tote. And I cannot tell you, we cannot keep these on the shelves. People love them. Love them. We have a little pocket for you to put, you know, your phone and everything. And brought a little tumbler for you for you, the hot cider, the slushies. Now, what's this on the apples? So, that apple is a new product that we're carrying in our cider market. It is a caramel. And it is delicious caramel. Let me try this. And it's different. It's not sticky. No, it's different than the caramel apples and the caramel you get over. And you can not only use it for apples, you can use it for anything. But I didn't even heat it up for you ladies, and it's just off the spoon. We still ate it. I could really just eat this out of the jar here. I'm not going to, but oh, it's so good. Delicious. And, you know, we're on the holiday time, Thanksgiving. We are a cider mill that we offer about 20 to 30 different varieties of pies. You have to pre-order for Thanksgiving, and we'll have all your pies ready that week of Thanksgiving. So this is a double busy season for you, because we have the fall season starting, so people are flocking to the mills. But Thanksgiving, too, with all the pies? Thanksgiving becomes a craziness. Everyone comes home, and they're like, we haven't been here in years. Some of the kids moved away, and they come back and see all their family. And they all meet at the cider mill to, like, see each other and get their hot donuts, their cold cider, yeah, hot cider. If someone wanted to order a pie, how far in advance should they do that, especially if it's for Thanksgiving? So for Thanksgiving, I tell everybody we need at least a five- to six-day window for that. but as long as I usually have I have a deadline of the Saturday before Thanksgiving to do it now I always we always carry our you know Dutch apple pies our regular apple pies and our cheesecake apple pies so we have them in the nine inch and the small six inch as well how many pies are you typically selling around Thanksgiving season hundreds thousands you're gonna be busy yeah well listen we'll put this information on our website at Fox2Detroit.com. You want to head on over? Jamie, don't even try to say it. Get the donut. They're so good. It's delicious. Thank you so much for coming in this morning. Thank you so much. It's so nice seeing you guys. My hands have cinnamon and sugar on them, so I can't shake your hand. She'll be doing one of these.