Cider Doughnuts and Somerset Winery

This weekend was Weston's Apple Fest.  Weston is about 45 minutes northwest of Kansas City. We went last year, and found it slightly disappointing.  Basically it’s a craft festival with the typical funnel cakes, and very few apple oriented goods.  Though I will admit, about 10 minutes away from Weston is an apple farm that makes the BEST apple doughnuts.  We considered going, merely to stop at the apple farm, but instead Apple Fest inspired us to go to the Louisburg Cider Mill, which is 30 minutes south of Kansas City.

As one would expect, Louisburg put up a good competition for Weston’s Apple Fest... they had their own Ciderfest going on with live banjo music, bbq, craft fair, corn maze, pumpkin patch, etc., which will be happening next weekend too.  The place was packed to the point that we were in 15 minutes of dead stopped traffic on the highway just waiting to park.  But once we were parked and out of the car the crowd made the trip feel more like an event.  I've been to Louisburg in their "off season" and it always feels destitute, out in the middle of nowhere with only one person inside their country store... this was completely different... little kids everywhere, petting zoo, donkey rides, an apple fort... we wove our way past all the craft tables (selling everything from mini apple, pecan, and cherry pies to homemade rugs), and went strait for the food.  One friend got in the cider doughnut line, and the rest of us got in the BBQ line.

Apparently we should have done the opposite, because both lines took about a half hour, but the doughnuts were being rationed out, only 1 dozen per customer (and we wanted 2 dozen)... luckily my friend was able to convince them to let him buy the amount we wanted, but the meat line didn't have such rations, so we should have sent one person over to the meat line and the rest stand in the doughnut line.

The BBQ stuff was all pre-made, but I had the apple cider pulled pork (and it was awesome), though sadly I covered it in bbq sauce, so the apple flavor was a little hard to taste....but I also ate three cider doughnuts, and had a glass of hot apple cider too (it was too cold outside for frozen apple cider)... Mix all three together, I think I've had my apple fill for the day!

After we over indulged we moved on to the corn maze which was $8 per person, yet there was no one collecting the tickets, so I was a little bummed we spent the money when really anyone can go in for free.  The maze was a little barren/tattered/abused.  We saw one kid after another breaking off a corn stalk as a keepsake, so there were many waist high stumps….and we had expectations of a HUGE maze, but they had it set up with only a couple twists and turns.

Right next to the corn maze was a genuine pumpkin patch...I kept trying to get my friends to buy the blazing red pumpkins (which they insisted were gourds not pumpkins)...We quickly discovered all the good pumpkins were hidden on the outskirts of the field, which kind of felt like a giant easter egg hunt, bright orange pumpkins tucked under green vines, leaves and brush.....and big orange pumpkin flowers acting as decoys...you would think you found a pumpkin only to discover it's just a flower, false alarm.

Now there was a lot more we could have done at Louisburg's Cider Mill, but we ran short of time, and on our way into the farm we saw signs for a winery, which we wanted to at the very least peek at, so we cut our time short at the Cider Mill and moved on.

The winery was called Somerset Ridge Vineyard.  At the Cider Mill there are signs that say "winery next left," which makes it sound like it's near by, but its not....we drove through a neighborhood, then a trailer park, and after the road switched to gravel we started to lose hope....yet sure enough, there was a winery, and it is definitely worth the drive....Happy groups of people sat outside around tables set out near the vineyard.  They were all smiling, chatting, and drinking bottles of wine while a guitar player quietly strummed a soothing melody. The store itself was packed, due to all the activity of the Ciderfest, but they have about 20 different types of wine.  None of the wines have descriptions other than "sweet dessert wine" or "dry red"...but at the counter they will let you try as many as you want, which is much more fun than reading descriptions on the backs of bottles.  We didn't have time to stand in line to try out the wines, but people were leaving the stores with cases full, so it must have been good, either that or they must give you so many samples that you leave thinking its good (and I'm all right with that).  :)

The whole trip was a nice classic fall activity, out in the sun, in the fields, eating apples and pumpkin spiced foods.  This is definitely the time of year to check out Louisburg!

Heres the websites to all the places:

Weston's Applefest: http://westonmo.com/entertainment/calendar.html#anchor_10

Louisburg's Cider Mill: http://www.louisburgcidermill.com/

Somerset Ridge Vineyard: http://somersetridge.com/index.html