Finnriver Buckhorn Cider: One Mountain, Two Hearts, One Shared Horizon

This is the story behind Peaks & Pints’ 2025–26 House Dry Cider — Finnriver Buckhorn Cider — a drink born between two sides of the same mountain. One side rooted in the rolling orchards of Chimacum Valley, the other in the cedar-lined heart of Tacoma’s Proctor District. Between them rises Buckhorn Mountain, that green, stoic silhouette visible from both the Finnriver Farm & Cidery and the Peaks & Pints craft beer and cider lodge — a shared horizon, a ridge that binds orchard and pint.

Some stories start with spreadsheets. Others with stars. This one begins with both — a half-wild dream born in the mist of Chimacum Valley, where an old dairy barn grew tired of silence and decided to ferment instead.

Back in 2004, wilderness educators Keith and Crystie Kisler met under Yosemite’s granite light and eventually sought a patch of land where they could “set down roots and grow a grounded life together.” Along with partners Kate Dean and Will O’Donnell, they purchased a 33-acre organic blueberry farm along Chimacum Creek, a salmon stream flowing through the Center Valley south of Port Townsend. The land had already begun its healing — stream restoration, soil care, a quiet hum of renewal.

They renamed the place Finnriver, after Kate and Will’s son Finn and the Kislers’ son River — a name that also nods to the Irish legend of Finn MacCool and the “Salmon of Wisdom.” The name held both ambition and humility: rivers of knowledge, apples of purpose, a joining of families and land.

One afternoon, previous owner Lige Christian arrived with a bottle of his homemade cider — made from “the apples out back.” One sip, and the idea rooted. Apples, not spreadsheets, would save the soil.

By 2008, the Kislers joined forces with Eric Jorgensen — environmental educator, raft guide, and philosopher of fermentation — and Finnriver Farm & Cidery officially took shape. What began as a scrappy, community-sustaining experiment became one of the Pacific Northwest’s torchbearers for organic, purpose-driven cider making. As Finnriver grew, the founders began to describe their roles with a simplicity that felt almost mythic: “Head, Hands & Heart.” Eric became the Head, bringing number-magic and structure to the dream. Keith was the Hands, guiding tractors and trees through the tangible labor of transformation. Crystie embodied the Heart, infusing every project with community, storytelling, and mission. Together they balanced logic, muscle, and soul — a trinity that still shapes the orchard’s hum and the company’s compass.

The Farm Becomes a Beacon

By 2012, Finnriver had outgrown its original home and leased a 50-acre historic dairy farm nearby — land that rolled open like a new stanza of the same poem. Here, surrounded by alder and salmonberry, they planted over 6,000 heirloom apple trees, built a fermentation barn and tap-room, and turned the site into a living classroom for land stewardship and celebration.

Their organic orchard holds 6,000 trees, more than two dozen traditional European and early-American cider-apple varieties — Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Brown Snout, Dabinett, Hewe’s Virginia Crab, Harry Masters Jersey — each one coaxed toward sunlight by careful, pyramidal pruning. The trees sit on semi-dwarf rootstock, harvested by hand, tree by tree, at a human scale. The orchard edges a salmon stream, protected forever under conservation easement — the fruit and the fish intertwined in the same story of water and patience.

Into this orchard chorus stepped Andrew Byers, a botanist, chef, and quietly ecstatic student of microbial life. Byers joined Finnriver in 2013, bringing a background in fungal ecology, Le Cordon Bleu precision, and a near-religious curiosity about fermentation. Under his watch, the ciders grew leaner, more eloquent — the orchard speaking through the glass in dry, luminous tones.

Finnriver became Certified Organic, Salmon Safe, and a Certified B Corporation, proving that business could indeed be a force for good — profit balanced with planet, cider balanced with soul.

On a beautiful late September day, Cider Director Byers — with Sales Manager and Brand Ambassador Chelsea Anderson — guided the Peaks & Pints crew through his orchard row by row, naming the trees like old friends. Hewe’s Virginia Crab, William’s Pride, Yarlington Mill, Brown Snout, Harry Masters Jersey — a litany of sweetness and tannin. We stepped into the fermenting barn: stainless tanks humming like mechanical bees, barrels sighing in the cool shade, the scent of French oak and apple flesh thick in the air. Andrew poured samples of their base cider, then led us through early-season Gravenstein tastings — the tart edge, the acid kick, the bright-green snap. Together we debated, blended, argued gently, laughed loudly. By afternoon, the recipe for Finnriver Buckhorn was alive in the tanks and on our tongues. That day became part of our Peaks & Pints story: we weren’t just guests — we were co-conspirators in the orchard’s next verse.

Alongside apples, Finnriver’s farm nurtures pears, currants, plums, blueberries, and wild-foraged botanicals, while small-farm partners grow vegetables and conduct agricultural research. Their Community Apple Harvest reaches from Port Angeles to Quilcene, gathering more than 20,000 pounds of home-grown fruit each fall. The Cider Garden Pavilion, reborn from that dairy barn, hums with live music, food trucks, bocce ball, and children’s laughter — a modern village where fermentation, family, and sunlight blur together.

Today, as the founders evolve into new roles — Keith tending regional grains through Chimacum Valley Grainery, where he and Crystie now grow, malt, and even brew their own beers on the farm; Crystie also leading community foundations; and Eric guiding the business and vision — Byers now steers daily operations as head cidermaker and co-owner. The story continues, composting and sprouting anew, season after season.

The Buckhorn Connection

Between Finnriver’s orchard rows and Peaks & Pints’ cedar lodge in Tacoma’s Proctor District rises Buckhorn Mountain — a rugged green sentinel of the Olympic foothills. On a clear day, we can both see it: Chimacum gazing east across the valley, Tacoma looking west over the Sound. The same mountain. The same light.

So when Peaks & Pints set out to craft its 2025–26 house cider with Finnriver, the name appeared like a ridge through fog: Finnriver Buckhorn Cider — a liquid thread connecting orchard and city, soil and taproom, humility and hunger.

Finnriver Buckhorn marks the fifth cider in Peaks & Pints’ house-cider lineage — a tradition that began with Double Mountain Cidery’s Tossed Apples (2021–22), followed by Yonder Cider’s House of Yonder, 2 Towns Ciderhouse’s RiverBreaker, and last year’s Incline Cider Basecamp Proctor. Each cider poured from our Tap #7 carried the flavor of partnership, geography, and curiosity. Now Buckhorn joins that lineage — the next ridge on a map of shared fermentations stretching from Hood River to Wenatchee to Chimacum.

Finnriver Buckhorn is built on a base of 70% Finnriver house blend and 30% Gravenstein early-season apple blend, matured with 30 ppm French oak powder, yielding a cider that balances clarity with complexity, crispness with calm.

Pressed and fermented in Chimacum, poured in Proctor, Buckhorn carries the quiet shimmer of its namesake — crisp, dry, organic, and Northwest to the core. It tastes like rain meeting apple skin, like cedar-breath over a cold pint, like two communities waving across the water with the same mountain between them.

“When Finnriver crafts a cider, we are aiming to harness all aspects of our community and showcase our region,” says Byers. “We try to put a cider together that has edges and depth and something thoughtful.

You’ll find the edges in this Buckhorn Cider — dry and tart shaping your experience as you drink it. This cider carries the depth of the community that’s bringing it to you. This is a collaboration of real human beings, talking it through and making the decisions that bring forth the excellence of our collective effort.

Then, as we tie into the Finnriver mission of reconnecting people to the land that sustains them, the cider brings forth the flavor of small-scale organic agriculture. So here’s a taste that is crisp, refreshing, and thoughtful all at once — from the Olympic Peninsula to you.”

Peaks & Pints’ Ninth Anniversary Party

On Saturday, Nov. 1, Peaks & Pints flings open its doors and raises a jubilant toast to nine deliriously delicious years of beer, cider, and community — the stuff that keeps Tacoma weird, wonderful, and properly hydrated.

At 6 p.m., we’ll debut two new spirit animals of fermentation: Finnriver Farm & Cidery’s Buckhorn Cider, our dry, organic ode to the mountain that connects Chimacum and Tacoma; and Lumberbeard Brewing’s Cut-Off Flannel IPA, the sleeveless, pine-and-citrus anthem to Peaks & Pints’ bearded devotion to lupulin glory.

The night will hum with live bluegrass thunder from our honorary house band, The Barleywine Revue, because no Peaks anniversary is complete without a little bar-top harmony and banjo sweat. Finnriver and Lumberbeard will pour extra magic from the taps, the firelight will flicker against cedar walls, and the air will smell faintly of apples, hops, and the kind of joy that only fermentation understands.

There’s no cover charge, no secret handshake — just bring your thirst, your flannel (sleeves optional), and come get fermentally fabulous with Peaks & Pints.

LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory