Apple juice with tangerine

Kohl Apple Juice Cuvée with Mandarin, North meets South

Mountain apples from the Ritten and mandarins from Ciaculli near Palermo: The Kohl Apple Juice Cuvée with Mandarin is a bright yellow, bittersweet juice creation – the marriage of North and South, of apple and citrus fruit, of sweetness and acidity.

Apple juice with mandarin is a cuvée by Thomas Kohl made from hand-picked South Tyrolean mountain apples and Sicilian mandarins. It shines bright yellow in the glass, with a bittersweet taste on the palate. What comes together here is separated by a good 1,300 kilometers – and yet fits together as if it were always meant to be.

"This cuvée combines the aromas of the South and the North: mandarins from Ciaculli ripened in the Sicilian sun and apples from our orchards kissed by the mountain sun," says Thomas Kohl. "The characterful mountain apple juice provides the structure for the juice, while the aromatic mandarin dances against this backdrop, adding sweet and sour taste reflections."

The ideal breakfast juice

The mandarin loves light food: summer salads, vegetarian dishes, mussels and crustaceans, plus cakes and yeast pastries.

It really plays to its strengths at the breakfast table: it has the citrus freshness one looks for in the morning, combined with the structure of the mountain apple that supports it. With a piece of braided yeast bread on a Sunday morning, the citrus note picks up on the butter, while the apple maintains the tone.

The mandarin from the Conca d'Oro

Ciaculli is located in the Conca d'Oro, the plain around Palermo that was once entirely covered by citrus groves – in the last fifty years, it has lost about 80 percent of its cultivated land to the growing city.

The late-harvest Ciaculli mandarin originated there in the 1940s from a spontaneous mutation: few seeds, thin skin, extraordinarily juicy pulp, and it only ripens from January to March, when other varieties have long since been harvested. About fifty small farmers have joined forces in the Consorzio Il Tardivo di Ciaculli to preserve the variety on about 80 hectares. Slow Food lists it as a Presidium.

The fact that this mandarin finds its way into a South Tyrolean bottle is worth it for both sides: the mountain apple gets a partner with history, and the fruit from the Conca d'Oro is drunk far north of its home.

Juices that make you crave the next sip

Thomas Kohl sees himself as a mountain apple juice affineur: someone who conceives juices that serve as a dining accompaniment.

Juices that don't fill you up, but make you crave the next sip. Juices with freshness, precisely because they are not too sweet. And juices that open up worlds of taste, as one would otherwise know from wine – non-alcoholic.

Just as with hops, Thomas consciously allows for tart and slightly astringent tones here; these are precisely what turn a fruit juice into a companion for the dining table. The mountain apples for this are grown on the Ritten at a good 900 to just under 1,000 meters – at this altitude, the fruit retains the acidity that carries the mandarin instead of being masked by it.

Each fruit is only pressed at full maturity; the juice is then preserved solely through gentle pasteurization. The European Vegetarian Union lists it with its vegan seal.

Served chilled, it reveals its citrus notes

A stemmed glass and 8 to 10 degrees: that is all the mandarin needs to show its citrus notes. After opening, it will keep for 6 days in the fridge; unopened and stored in a dark place, it lasts for at least a year. The apple juice with pineapple sounds more exotic, the apple juice with elderflower more floral – you can find them side by side in the Kohl Cuvées.