Last Saturday I attended Ithaca’s annual Apple Fest. I always go every year with my friends, so I knew what to expect. This year’s Apple Fest probably had some of the best weather in all of the years that I have been going. Also, I found this particular Apple Fest to be surprisingly educational for me. Before we walked down to the Commons, SA Katie gave a brief talk on the history of Apple Fest, and on apples in general. My friend and I were surprised to learn that apples originated from Asia. I have always associated them with New York, so I never imagined that they could have come from somewhere else. I also never knew why Apple Fest started, so it was interesting to hear the story behind it. Apparently the person to start Apple Fest now is the vendor that sells the super popular apple cider donuts (On a side note, I noticed far more apple cider donut vendors this year than in previous years). Since this was the first Apple Fest where my friends and I were all over 21, we decided to participate in a hard cider tasting, which also proved to be educational. There I learned about (and got to taste) ice cider. The name is a reference to the process used to create it, in which the apples are frozen (leading to their sugar becoming extremely concentrated) before they are fermented. This leads to an incredibly sweet cider–almost like a syrup. The person running the tasting even suggested (and I completely agreed) that it could be used as a topping on desserts like vanilla ice cream. As I never knew that such a drink existed, I found it to be very interesting. Overall, I found this year’s Apple Fest to be very informative and delicious.