I took one sip of Ostmost’s apple juice, and was immediately enchanted. It tastes like a childhood memory of climbing your neighbor’s tree and enjoying the first bite of a stolen apple whilst sitting on top of the tree crown.

The taste of this specific juice has not only diversity, but also depth – I can almost detect an intense, full-bodied finish, as if I was enjoying wine instead of apple juice. But this juice has as much in common with wine as Primark has with Haute Couture. Ostmost’s rich flavour comes from organically certified meadow orchards, where they harvest scattered fruit.

Scattered Fruit? Are those the apples that just fall off the tree and lay strewn across the grass? “No, not fallen fruit,” says Paul Döcker of Ostmost. “The trees are just scattered across the grassland, that’s where the name comes from.”
In these kinds of meadows you will find pears, walnuts, cherries, plums, and, last but not least, apples. The trees are spaced up to ten meters apart, so that the cows can graze or the land can be used as a hay meadow.

Reclaiming meadows

‘Reclaim Meadows with Scattered Fruit. Drink up and rebel’ is written on the back of the Ostmost bottles, both a challenge and a vision. In 2012, Bernd Schock, the man with an idea, founded an association named Äpfel und Konsorten, which aims to protect certain kinds of fruit from extinction. All of the fruits require specific care, with some of them ripening in September, while others not before January or the first frost. One issue arose quite soon though: what was supposed to happen with all the saved apples? The answer to this question came two years later, when Ostmost was founded.
Schock founded the company together with Harald Elm, who owns a wine press house called Elm in Fulda. This is where the apples are turned into juice. Dennis Meier and Paul Döcker are responsible for distribution and sales. Together, their combined knowledge, blood, sweat and tears is poured into Ostmost.

Robust species are preferably picked, since they have adapted to the local conditions and interact well with the soil compositions and the climate. These types of trees often carry funny names, such as Straw-colored Cardinal, Privy Councilor, Dr. Oldenburg or Minister of Hammerstein. Unfortunately, these meadow orchards containing apple trees are increasingly endangered. Only 60 of the 3,000 original varieties are available for purchase today. Local and regional statistics are showing that the number of meadows with scattered fruit has decreased by 70-75 percent in the past 50 years in Germany and Middle-Europe.

Personal Taste

At the beginning, Ostmost produced juice, spritzer and cider (including a ‘wild’ version with 5.5 percent or a ‘mild’ version with 3.5percent alcohol).

“Our cider is especially popular at clubs,” Paul explains, as they come in a twist off bottle, which makes them great for dancing. In total, Ostmost carries seven products with minimalistic label designs at the moment, featuring a fox, an owl, a green woodpecker, a pirol, a hoopoe and mole on the labels. The flavors include Apple-Mint, Apple-Beetroot and Apple-Currant.

In my opinion, the cider has a bit of harsh taste and might not be for everybody. The Apple-Currant-Spritzer tastes sour, almost like grape juice from a vintner (a wine merchant). The Apple-Mint-Spritzer has a bizarre taste, and it may require more than one try – it’s on the lesser side of sweet, and the combination of water and German spearmint turns out to be rather refreshing.

The taste of beetroot presides over the Apple-Beetroot-Spritzer, but you’d have to like its distinct flavor in order to enjoy the drink.
“Our Apple-Beetroot-Spritzer is often polarising,” says Paul, explaining that in order to get this variety produced, they had to go head-to-head with the vintner, who was sure that the beetroot spritzer wouldn’t sell. But the young German brand from Berlin wanted to distinguish themselves from the competition, especially in the taste department, and went ahead with production after all.

Harvesting through several generations

The Berlin based beverage brand is primarily sourced from three meadow orchards in Thuringia. However, they are expanding, as Paul and the team have also leased land in Brandenburg, which they will use to plant only new young trees.
“The biggest challenge is finding old varieties of the fruit,” Paul explains. Throughout the summer, the young trees stood with Ostmost customers in locations such as the roofgarden of the Klunkerkranich in Neukölln or in the Prinzessinnen-gardens in Kreuzberg. This fall, the young trees will be transferred to their orchard in Brandenburg.

It’s not hard for Paul to explain why his passions are so tied up in sustaining meadow orchards and harvesting scattered fruit. “They are also called the little rainforests of Europe,” he tells. Up to 6,000 species of plants and animals call this kind of meadow their home, from the dandelion to the bee, autumn crocus, foxes, cross-spiders and sage. It is a safe haven for flora and fauna, which is invaluable to our ecosystem.

Moreover, the trees are not in anyway treated with chemicals and the apples are collected by hand. “This is our first quality check,” says Paul, aimed to ensure that only ripe apples are gathered – and this is what you’ll end up tasting.

But this careful method of cultivation has its price, which is why these kinds of meadow orchards are slowly vanishing. Ostmost is trying to fight against this phenomenon. They pay their farmers through the so-called ‘Aufpreismodell’, meaning they pay the double amount of the current market price for apples. “We want our farmers to be fairly paid for their work,” Paul adds. This standard of fairness and quality comes at a steep price, which is why a 0.33l bottle costs around two to three euros in store.

The trees need up to 31 years in order to gain their full production potential. In return, the trees can live for up to 150 years, in which the founders recognize a long-term advantage.

“We harvest the apples of our fathers and plant the trees for our children,” says Paul.

The juice from these trees is quite bitter, and can be slightly jarring. Fortunately, the urban population of Berlin is relatively open minded, eventually growing fond of the sour taste of the scattered fruit.
Ostmost is being sold in quite a few restaurants, bars, clubs and cafes in the city and is even served by celebrity chef Tim Raue. But there is one catch: “This product is not going to be around forever,” says Paul, grinning. The main ingredients are not endless, seeing as there are not many organically certified meadow orchards with scattered fruit. But Paul embraces this reality. “I like the idea of having a limited product. It makes it something anachronistic in a world where anything is available all the time and everywhere”.