WHITE SALMON, Wash. — Jonathan Quigley is a first-generation farmer, after having worked in the hospitality, brewery and restaurant industries.

“I grew up in New England and got into orchards after starting in the restaurant industry,” he said. “I managed for McDonalds and for a craft brewery and managed some hotels and events, then realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do. While working for a brewery I helped an orchard start their hard cider operation. That got me interested in orchards and the apple business.”

After a few years working with that orchard, he was looking for opportunities in the field of apples and cider.

“There wasn’t a lot of opportunity in New England so I came to Washington,” he said.

He went first to an orchard near Walla Walla, then three years ago moved to Organic Orchards Inc. in White Salmon, Wash., about 10 miles north of Hood River on the Washington side of the Columbia River.

“I manage the orchard and am currently in the process of taking over,” he said.

They grow apples and pears organically and are Washington State Department of Agriculture certified organic.

“We grow and press our own cider and sell fresh half-gallons during the fall,” Quigley said. “My addition to the orchard — as I try to increase sales so I can afford to buy the place —was to introduce sparkling cider. This is a Martinelli style of carbonated non-alcoholic cider — a sparkling apple juice, rather than a hard or fermented cider.”

He launched that product two years ago, and has had good success in the Portland market.

They sell mainly to New Seasons — a chain of neighborhood grocery stores in the Portland metro area and southwestern Washington.

“They buy a lot of our fruit and ciders. A distributor, Organically Grown Co., distributes our produce and cider around the Pacific Northwest,” he said. “We don’t do direct sales here at the farm. It’s a small orchard, about 10 acres. We do all our own packing, pressing and bottling, and store our own fruit on site.”

The facility is Food and Drug Administration regulated so everything is inspected — “both by the organic program and by FDA for our juice facility,” Quigley said.

This orchard had been producing cider for about 25 years, doing traditional half-gallon fresh cider.

“We usually start offering that in early October until right after Christmas. The orchard will be 30 years old this year, from when it was planted,” he said. “I was able to build on their expertise and we created this new sparkling cider, which has become a premium product with the carbonation.”

Several varieties are offered. One is called the Autumn Rose — a sparkling pink apple juice —and one is called the Concorde Pear, made with just Concorde pears.

“I am trying to do something unique that highlights and showcases the best of what Washington apples and pears can be,” Quigley said. “That’s my goal for the product; even juice can be more than just juice. It can be spectacular if you do it the right way.”

They don’t have on-farm facilities for tasting yet, but they take their products for tastings in the marketplace.

“I am starting to do some of this in Portland, and in April we will be doing the Taste Washington Wine event — Washington’s big wine festival,” he said. “I will be serving and selling my product there, and hopefully market off the wine industry that has been doing so well here; I offer a non-alcoholic option that can fit in with the premium crowd.”

This is a perfect beverage for people who want something special that is non-alcoholic, he said.

“We want to expand our market and are scaling up. We need a third-party audit nowadays so we are working toward that,” Quigley said.

He is excited about doing something a little different, hoping this will help the orchard survive, in these trying times in agriculture.

Jonathan is active in the Washington Farm Bureau, and is the new vice chair for the WSFB Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee.

“The leadership at WSFB has been incredibly supportive from the time I moved to Washington in 2018,” he said.