The Story of Eve
Before Eve Went Badass, she had to be born. And that story, like so many do, begins at a kitchen table. It was the middle of 2017 and we’d grown a bumper crop of cayenne peppers that summer. Our middle son would have been 16 at the time, and was exploring the edges of masculinity by dosing his food with ever more generous applications of hot sauce. As one does.
The cidery had just been launched earlier that year, and true to form for a small, upstart product company, there were ill-attended mason jars of cider throughout our house - myriad little experiments frothing and bubbling away in various stages of success, or, more likely, failure. Presented with both motive and opportunity, Nathan commissioned himself to the latest Heartwood adventure, and chopped some of the peppers into a jar of cider to see what would become of that peculiar alchemy.
The first go was spectacularly awful. Undrinkable. Seriously.
And then I remember Val saying: “I bet a bit of honey would balance this out.” And I remember saying: “Hmmmmm…”
We were scheduled to serve cider at an upcoming fundraising event for Ed Video in Guelph. It was called “Brewhaha”, and would be attended by lots of university students, artists, and hippie types. So I figured if there would ever be a decent test group for this zany idea, this would be it. I figured it was a one-time thing. A dash of craziness to spice up a fun event, but nothing more. Check out this excerpt from an email I sent to my friend Bill on Nov. 9, 2017:
“... The other one is straight up base cider infused with Cayenne pepper. “Eve Goes Badass” is what we were thinking about calling that one.
Anyway, I think they’ll both be fun. The idea is not to make them staple offerings, but special one-timers just for the Brewhaha event.”
Thing is, after that event, people asked how they could get more Eve Goes Badass. I asked them if they were serious. They said yes.
Six and a half years later, Eve Goes Badass has just been inducted into select LCBO retail stores. What do you know? Eve has never stopped surprising us.
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Brent Klassen
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