Red Rover Cider lands in NB Liquor stores after 2 years

After almost two years of hard work, a Fredericton-based craft cider company has finally been approved to sell their award-winning product in NB Liquor stores.

The owners of Red Rover Cider are busy filling boxes of 750-ml bottles that will be shipped to liquor stores in Fredericton, Dieppe and Saint John.

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The cider has been available at the Fredericton-based cidery and at farmers markets across the province, but it had been blocked from the shelves of provincial liquor stores.

Nicola Mason said the ability to be stocked on NB Liquor shelves is a huge step forward for the local business.

"I'm really excited to find out how people who haven't tried it yet or people haven't even heard of it yet are going to receive it," she said.

Mason and Adam Clawson have been trying to get into liquor stores since they opened their business in 2012.

While the craft beer market in New Brunswick has been growing in recent years, the craft cider market was relatively new.

And that caused problems for the cider business as it tried to get its bottles on liquor store shelves.

Among the challenges faced by the company, the markup on their product has been so high that they haven't been able to afford it.

Red Rover's cider didn't fit into the normal beer or wine policies in the province.

One of the problems that Red Rover faced was that it didn't grow the apples for its cider on location.

The cider was also blocked from participating in NB Liquor's growler program, which had been set up to help grow the craft beer business.

The government's red tape has slowed down progress and at one point, the future of the company looked uncertain.

"It was definitely frustrating, at times," Clawson said.

"This has been two years since we started almost, Feb. 13, is our second anniversary. So it's been a long road to get there," he said.

Now they've struck a more feasible rate with NB Liquor, although it's still higher than the markup for beer.

A NB Liquor spokesperson said its business dealings with Red Rover are private and the corporation didn't have any further comment.

Clawson and Mason say even with all the delays having their cider in stores is an important step forward.

The company will start in three stores and will offer three varieties, including Fire Cider, which won the Gold medal in the cider category in the 2015 Atlantic Canadian Beer Awards.

The new access to NB Liquor stores has caused Mason and Clawson to quickly ramp up their bottling but the owners aren't complaining.

"It's always been pretty busy with all the farmer's markets. But it's just a different kind of business," Clawson said.