Sara Stewart is one of those people whose passion for ingredients is palpable. A regenerative vegetable farmer by craft, Stewart leased land on a property on Cortes Island, British Columbia, to farm her crops where there was also an abandoned orchard of 500 fruit trees. For decades, ravens have been coming to eat the fruit. “They harassed me and my fields so badly that I started a cidery to deal with them,” she says.
The result is Wildflower Cidery. “I never imagined my life decisions would be based around birds that are outsmarting me,” Stewart says.
Lucky for cider lovers in Western Canada, those mischievous birds catalyzed Stewart’s experimentation with wild fermentation of her apples. “I love that fermenting beverages is even older than farming,” she says. “It helps me to connect and understand the past as we move forward into an uncertain future.”
All of the Wildflower ciders are fermented in very small batches using only the natural yeast living on the fruit. “My entire goal as a farmer is to support the microbiology in the soil and I’m fermenting the same way. I try to make cider like they did hundreds of years ago, except with better hygiene,” she says, emphasizing her complete lack of interest in working with a sterile product. “The same yeast that is in the orchard is still alive in every bottle.”
Stewart fondly calls her dominant yeast “Dusty,” explaining that “giving it a name helps me treat the yeast like an individual that I need to understand in order to take care of it.”
Stewart’s farming instincts translate to a cidermaking process that is natural, intentional and dependent upon healthy soil. “I farm and have built my businesses using permaculture principles,” she explains. “Instead of approaching the season with an idea of what I want to produce, I let the season and the fruit dictate which ciders I make. Wild foods are an important and abundant resource that are making some really great flavors.”
Some of those flavors included her 2024 cider expressions made with hawthorn berries, rosehip, ginger and carrots. In 2025, she crafted batches with huckleberry and elderberry. All of the apples she uses come from her farmland, and from Cortes or Quadra Island. All of the other fruit, veggies and wild harvest ingredients are grown on Cortes.
“I also use the farm to grow vegetable-based cider varieties,” she adds. “For example, this year I intentionally grew extra beets and ginger for cider. But at the end of the season my rudimentary walk-in cooler broke so everything that I couldn’t sell right away went into tanks. Which is how I ended up with basil, hot peppers and cantaloupe.”
Cantaloupe cider doesn’t exactly exist in the commercial space already — “so I may be a revolutionary or it may go down the drain.”
The ciders that make the cut will go to market in 2026. Look for Wildflower ciders at the Cortes Market in the summer and Comox Valley Farmer’s Market in the spring, fall and winter. Stewart will also debut a farm stand this summer, and she sells her ciders to select restaurants and natural wine stores across British Columbia.
Follow along on social media @wildflowercidery.
