Frank Bristol and friends head to the orchard to pick apples. Photo/Mark Christensen
Frank Bristol and friends head to the orchard to pick apples. Photo/Mark Christensen
A tangy apple juice and a fiery chilli sauce are two products being made from the famous Monty's Surprise apples grown in Whanganui.
The variety was discovered by Whanganui heritage food researcher Mark Christensen, who found it had health-giving properties in very high levels of procyanidins as well as quercetin flavonoid compounds.
With help from supporters Christensen grew and distributed thousands of the trees.
Supporters and friends have formed Montys Surprise Apple Ltd with an unwritten, initial business plan - simply to share any losses.
When Christensen wanted more powdered extract from the apples for his research, friend and former vegetable grower Frank Bristol planted an orchard of 300 of the trees on land at Papaiti. They were not certified organic, but have never been sprayed or manured.
"It's a very robust tree. It gets good crops with no chemicals applied," Bristol said.
Christensen doesn't need the extract anymore, and Bristol and friends harvested the apples last weekend.
The harvest is 12 bins of Monty's Surprise apples.
There were just 12 bins - half the amount of last season. They will be trucked to contract processors in the Wairarapa, where most of the apples will be crushed, and the juice filtered, pasteurised and bottled.
It will be labelled as artisan apple juice, and sold at the Whanganui River Markets. Cafes around Whanganui are also keen to stock it.
"It tastes so nice. It's got sweetness and tartness, and it leaves a nice clean mouth after drinking it," Bristol said.
The group of heritage food enthusiasts initially thought they would use the juice to make an alcoholic cider. But there were a lot of regulations to cope with. Making and selling juice was easier.
It was also used to make an apple cider vinegar, which was sold at the market, and at Wild Oats and other Whanganui shops.
Some of the pulp would also be kept to use as the base for a new venture - Tres Hombres chilli sauce. Bristol was working with Paul Anderson and Alex Loggie on this one. Loggie was passionate about hot sauces.
Alex Loggie holds a jar of Tres Hombres chilli sauce. Photo/Supplied
The sauce would be produced with varying degrees of heat - from four to six out of 10. There were 810 chilli plants growing in Bristol's greenhouses.
The base of the sauce would be fruit, and the group was looking for local pears to add.
"It will have a nice fruity taste, before the heat kicks in."
The first batch, made in a commercial kitchen, would be ready for tasting at the markets next month.
The sauce could also be marketed online, through social media. People were already asking for it.
