COVID Opens: Artifact Cider Project

“Jumping right in to this terroir conversation. I’m excited.”

Soham Bhatt’s excitement about apples, cider and sense of place burns bright. With Artifact Cider Project—both canned ciders and taprooms—he aims to spread that enthusiasm. The project started in 2014 “with the desire to create exceptional cider that expresses the northeast as it is today.” The ciders are available throughout the region and at the first Artifact taproom in Florence. The new taproom, in Central Square, opened last year just as the pandemic struck. Read on for more of our conversation.

Photos courtesy of Artifact Cider Project

THE PLAN

“We were supposed to open in the spring of 2020. Construction was just about wrapping up when the pandemic hit, around early March, end of February when we started all taking it seriously and kind of going into lockdown. The first thing was, yeah, automatically delayed opening. Then the case counts got kind of low and they we were like, oh, we all flattened the curve. We tried opening, in a limited sense, indoors. Actually it turned out to be really cool because it was a good time for us to see how people were interacting in the space and feeling about it and then potentially make some changes.

 The dream for this space was to take these ideas of representing our region’s terroir in a way that’s a little bit different than the way people talk about sense of place, extending it and being like, okay, this isn't like some “old fogey” concept, this isn’t just a European concept. This is something that we all are part of. Cider is a major part of that, it’s part of that fabric of this place and we can use this space to showcase how special that is and how unique it is. And so when we opened to people, we got a chance to do it and then we had to kind of pull back.

But when we went back to take out only, and that was the winter, there were two ways to really look at it. You can either curl up and cry or you can just figure it out. And we’re lucky we have a good team; pivoting is part of the Artifact way…we have rolled with so many punches over the years that it’s kind of in our DNA to just be like, all right, let’s just move, let’s figure out what this next thing is. And actually the big question was how do we connect people with our ciders, through a plexiglass and a retail setting?”

THE PIVOT 

Apple Shares

“With some of the special orchards that we work with, they have all these rare heirloom apples. Some apples of that ilk that I like to use for cider, but there are others that are just extraordinary to eat on their own. And apple season is something to be celebrated, not just for cider, but also for eating apples and cooking with them... We did Esopus Spitzenburg, which was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apple (other than the Albemarle Pippin)… Roxbury Russet, which is the oldest American apple, from Roxbury. And so we did two different shares (like CSA shares) with two different focuses. Some of them show up in our ciders but other ones are just great on their own. So people connect with that idea—that it’s harvest season, let’s celebrate this and connect it to place, and also tell these stories of these apples, which are pretty cool. Without focusing too much on the past.

The idea’s just connecting to land and place, but doing it in cool ways. We launched a Slowdown Oyster Kit. It was actually a cider that we launched during the pandemic. It was like May or June and I was just stir crazy, needed to get out of the house. And I was dreaming of something simple. It wasn’t like I needed to go to a Caribbean beach or whatever, I would just like to maybe go to Maine. That would be nice. So this cider was created through that inspiration of the rocky Maine coast, refreshing and mineral, but dry at the same time. And then connecting it to that feeling of being with friends and eating oysters, having a cider that fits with that. But how can we take this one step further? So we reached out to Mook, who was an innovator in the oyster space. I know everyone talks about Island Creek, but before Island Creek, there was Mook. Bill Mook actually gave them the seeds to start their farm. He's like an OG of the oyster world. We got these oyster knives with the four-pack, a little bit of sea salt just to hit it home. And people got a discount on shipping the oysters to their home.”

Cider and Cheese Pairing Kit

“And then the most recent one that we did was with a dairy farm in Western Mass called Grace Hill Farm, run by a really cute, young, married couple. And they took some of our cider and washed their cheese with it for two months. And then we bought a bunch of it and we’re selling it as a kit. So we did a tasting flight. So people would come in and buy a mixed four-pack and then they’d get a tasting card and four of their cheeses along with the special one, our Artifact cheese.

And so that’s really what it’s been. If we don’t have people in this space, we’re still going to be able to connect them to a sense of place through this unique programming and just throw all the rules out the window and try something new.”

THE BOTTOM LINE

“We were lucky that MIT is our landlord and they were great. They’ve been a great partner throughout the whole thing. Thankfully, they were just like, look, you guys haven’t even had a chance yet. We’re not going to cut you off.

 So that was really amazing. Because it's a new business, we weren’t really eligible for a lot of the government stimulus money. So really we did have to rely on rent relief. And we did qualify for a couple of local grants, and that has helped to keep things going, but really we just paid for stuff. We lost money. That was the reality, and we’re just trying to stay optimistic.

THE FUTURE

I think we’re hoping for May, sometime in May, to open. I'm not going to try and rush it this time around, I think that kind of lines up really well with our seasonal changes, gives us some time to do some hiring. This place is set up for the pandemic. So all the tables are really far apart. There’s no bar seating or anything like that. And we need a little bit of time to just roll with whatever the latest restrictions are or whatever. And we’re also going to have a patio. So that’s the big news.”

The Station x Central Square
438 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

ARTIFACT CIDER PROJECT
hello@artifactcider.com

Hours (Takeaway Only)
Friday 2–6pm | Saturday 12–4pm | Sunday 12–4pm

Phone
617.544.3494

This story appeared as an Online Exclusive in April 2021.