The serendipitous “in-cider” story of Spy Cider House and Distillery.
by Natalie Goldenberg-Fife // photography by Anya Shor & Jessica Crandlemire
There are some seriously good new vibes circulating at Spy Cider House and Distillery.
In the spring, summer and fall, the magical atmosphere of 80 acres of flowering organic orchards, composed of over a dozen different apple varieties, seeps into the air. Weekly yoga classes, an outdoor wood-fired oven and cider-friendly menu—helmed on weekends by Bruce Wine Bar—and kids and dogs smiling and playing freely signal a venue-centric destination designed for outdoor joie de vivre.
And the libations are pretty great too, thanks to Martha Lowry, passionate apple aficionado and one of Canada’s best-established female distillers, combined with a state-of-the-art production facility.
Nestled amidst 360-degree views of The Blue Mountains, Spy 2023 is not the same Spy that was opened in 2019 by David Butterfield (award-winning Burgundian wine producer and former CFO of the luxury travel agency Butterfield & Robinson) and his longtime friend Piers Roberts, an Ontario cider maker and distiller.
The story goes that over a decade ago, while sipping on Calvados, the famous apple brandy, in Normandy, the pair thought it would be a great idea to produce Ontario’s first apple brandy using Ontario apples.
And turn this idea into reality they did. The property was purchased and the facility was built while older orchards were revived and new trees with European cider varieties like Golden Pearmain and Calville Blanc d’Hiver were planted—and they bought a 700-litre German still. But COVID changed the trajectory of Butterfield’s and Roberts’ lives and the Calvados-inspired version of Spy was listed for sale for $4 million in November 2022.
And now for a plot twist.
Probably right around the time that Butterfield and Roberts were dreaming up Spy in France, another pair were having a blue sky idea conversation at a College Street restaurant in Toronto.
Darcy Hagerman, a well-established Toronto yoga teacher and owner of multiple studios, asked her husband, Ian Smith, a commercial real estate agent, “If you could live anywhere and do anything without the constraints of education and finances what would you do?”
“I would live near Collingwood and run a distillery,” said Smith. “I love marketing and I think it would be an ironic and neat angle because I don’t drink.”
Fast forward to March 2023, Hagerman and Smith are living on a 50-acre property in the Beaver Valley and are en route to the airport to fly to Florida for March Break when Smith sees a Sotheby’s no-reserve auction sign going into the ground at Spy.
“A no-reserve auction essentially means the item will be sold regardless of price. We had seen the property go on sale in November but couldn’t figure it out financially. Now it appeared the market had cooled down,” says Smith.
Game on!
Smith and Hagerman spent the next nine days in Florida in a nail-biting race to get all the paperwork lined up to put in their bid. The day they were leaving, it was all up to the cider fairies.
“I remember starfishing my body in the pool that morning, staring at the sky and thinking our lives could really change today—or not at all,” says Hagerman. “I recently had had my tarot cards read and was told that at the beginning of Aries season, something big and life-changing was going to happen and to be ready!” On March 21, the beginning of Aries season, the auction for Spy went live at 4 p.m. Hagerman and Smith found out their bid had won at 4:11.
By 4:30, two folks with zero hospitality or distilling experience were on their way back to Canada as the new owners of Spy: a 3,000-square-foot production space, four-season patio, acres of orchards, a two-storey consumer-facing retail shop and tasting room, six 12,000-litre fermentation tanks (some filled with juice), a 12,000-litre carbonation/brite tank, glycol temperature-controlled tanks, and more.
The power of manifestation is remarkable.
So now what? Who was going to use all this fancy equipment to make cider
and spirits?
Enter Martha Lowry, an old family friend who Smith serendipitously remembered he used to babysit. He Googled Lowry and realized she’s revered in the industry, having worked at Dillon’s, Mill Street Brewery and Brickworks Ciderhouse.
“I gave her a call and said, ‘I haven’t talked to you in 20 years but it sounds like you are doing amazing stuff and we just bought a cidery and would love if you could come do the inventory check with us and let us know if we are dumb or crazy.’”
The site visit was a hit. At the time, Lowry and her husband Alastair were gearing up to open a small orchard-to-glass cidery, Woodfolk, utilizing regenerative farming, on their 87-acre property. The Woodfolk project is still in the works but for now Lowry is thrilled to be at Spy because of the amazing orchards, equipment, space and, most importantly, the two big-hearted visionaries, Hagerman and Smith.
“Ian and Darcy are awesome and so community-focused, with a desire to build cool spots for people to come, eat and drink tasty things. They care about connecting with local farmers. I have always been in love with plants, flowers and gardening. Apples got into my blood and the more I learned about their history, flavour and flavour compounds, the more I fell in love. I don’t know any other fruit that has that much variation,” says Lowry.
“The idea of creating a fermented beverage from a Canadian agriculture product utilizing all the different flavours of apples is so exciting.”
