If you haven’t visited Hallock’s Cider Mill in Laurel yet, you are, quite literally, in for a treat. The menu of homemade pies, breads, cookies, donuts, quiches, chowders and bisques, preserves, ciders and pickled items is huge. And, since it’s a farm stand, there are also seasonally dictated fruits of the land: sweet corn, tomatoes, peaches, pears, nectarines and several kinds of apples, along with plenty of other produce and fresh flowers to fill your basket.
Wayne Hallock Sr. and his wife, Marianne Schwerdt Hallock, own the Cider Mill, which was built in 1978. But the Hallock family has been around the East End for generations, dating all the way back to the 1600s.
“We are the business,” says Wayne Sr. “We’re family run and we intend to keep it that way.”
founding father
Peter Hallock was one of the 13 founding fathers of Southold Town, leaving England in 1630 and settling in Connecticut. Led by the Rev. John Youngs, they migrated south, arriving at Founder’s Landing in Southold in 1640. Former Southold Town Historian Antonia Booth notes that before 1640, all the land from what is now Orient Point to Wading River was bought by New Haven’s magistrates from the Native American Corchaug tribe.
Hallock retrieved his wife and sons from England and bought a farm about two miles west of Mattituck village that stretched from Long Island Sound to Peconic Bay. According to a Hallock family genealogy site, “numerous other families of Hallocks, most of them prosperous farmers, reside on, or near, this purchase by Peter Hallock.”
“They were farmers, fishermen, preachers, sailors, builders — they had to do everything back then,” says Wayne Sr. “I’m the 11th generation; [my son] Wayne Jr. is the 12th generation, and [his daughter] Amber is the 13th generation of Hallocks.”
Wayne Sr. has worked on the Hallock family farm ever since he can remember, selling produce and cider outside his circa-1860 farmhouse. He helped build the farm stand in 1978 and immediately found plenty of customers — locals, folks heading to Greenport to fish and visitors spending the summer in family bungalows. They came for the farm-fresh items, but also because they knew everything was made in-house in the farm stand’s rear kitchen.
“We love to cook and bake — all of us do,” says Wayne Sr. “It’s in our blood.”
sweet as pie
The Cider Mill is known for its large assortment of pies, including key lime and its chocolate-bottom variant. Also popular are the frozen key-lime pops with a Belgian dark chocolate coating.
The self-taught Wayne Sr. regularly invents new flavors and creates his own versions of popular recipes. Bumbleberry pie, a combination of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, was invented by Marianne.
“She also invented the peanut butter pie,” Wayne Sr. says. It has a crust made from peanuts and chocolate chips and is gluten free.
Wayne Jr. notes that “key-lime pie is probably our biggest seller for most of the season; then, in the fall, apple, pecan, pumpkin and the Sinful Pie sell well.” The Sinful Pie is buzzed about by customers in the know — Wayne Jr. describes it as “a cream cheese mousse with toasted pecans and coconut, then topped with caramel.” Wayne Sr. once tasted a similar pie on a trip down south and decided to try to recreate it. “We usually can figure out the recipe,” he says.
Many types of fruit pies, some with crumb toppings, can be found throughout the season, and the Cider Mill also carries smaller six-inch pies so that folks can more easily try several different flavors at once.
soup to nuts
The Cider Mill’s clam chowder, advertised on a sign outside their shop, is quite popular — it even got a shoutout in “Vogue” when Hallock’s Cider Mill was chosen as one of the top 10 farmers markets of the year in 2014. Wayne Sr.’s recipe has been handed down within the family since the 1600s and he’s tweaked it to include big pieces of potato and carrot. He also uses fresh clams — a lot of them.
“The chowder was traditionally made by the men in the family,” he recalls. “We use fresh clams only, and when we can’t get the clams, we don’t have it.”
Photos by Doug Young
Shrimp and corn chowder is another favorite, as is the lobster bisque. “We’re making pumpkin soup at this time of year,” notes Wayne Jr., “a creamy pumpkin soup with lots of spices.”
On the weekends, Hallock’s Cider Mill offers a bacon and Monterey Jack quiche. “They are so popular — sometimes we are sold out by 11 a.m.,” Wayne Jr. says. There’s also sfogliatelle, a clam-shaped Italian pastry with a creamy ricotta filling. The layered, delicate thin dough is challenging to produce, but Wayne Sr. taught himself to make the pastry when customers asked for it.
Additionally, you will find preserves, salsas, barbecue sauce and pickled items at the Cider Mill. Black and blueberry and fig jams are popular. Various pickled vegetables, like carrots and beets, line the shelves. Preserved vanilla-kissed peaches, a big hit, can be eaten right out of the jar or grilled and served with ice cream on top.
“Probably someone made that recipe years ago, maybe an aunt or a grandma,” says Wayne Sr. “We try some different things like that in the winter when we have more time.”
An uncommon item is the labor-intensive black walnut syrup made from the nut meat of the black walnut tree, those ubiquitous yellow-green globes that fall in September. They are extremely difficult to open and don’t come out of the shell easily. Wayne Sr. uses a wooden mallet and cracks them on a tree stump so the shells don’t go flying; he uses a pick to get the nut meat out. Luckily “you don’t need much,” he says. “It’s a very strong nut, a lot stronger than English walnuts.” The syrup can be used like maple syrup — on pancakes, waffles or over ice cream. Perhaps even in a cocktail, if you’re so inclined.
Unfiltered cider is made year round in four flavors: peach, cherry, apple and mulled apple (mulling spices include allspice, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg). The family grows their own apples upstate in the Hudson Valley on land they own. They travel there to inspect and harvest the crop; they also have peach, pear and nectarine trees.
home for the holidays
For most farmers markets and farm stands, Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday of the year, and Hallock’s Cider Mill is no exception. The family starts taking orders for pies and other items on Columbus Day Weekend and stops a week before Thanksgiving. “We have some items available in the store, but if there is a specific pie you want, you need to order ahead,” says Wayne Jr. “We only take orders for about 12 types of pie.”
The whole family works seven days a week during the season, which runs from May 1 to Christmas Eve. In winter, “we regroup,” says Wayne Jr. “We relax and recharge.”
His father notes, “We almost start the day after we close, planning and buying supplies for next season.”
These days, Wayne Sr. has let his son and granddaughter take over most of the baking while he handles the bookkeeping and paperwork that keeps things running. “It’s a very physical job,” he acknowledges. “You’re on your feet all day and there’s lots of lifting and physical work.”
For the Hallocks, though, the hard work is a labor of love—a way of honoring their family’s history and hundreds of years of a mighty work ethic that vibrates from generation to generation.
“When the customers rave about it, that’s the best. ‘What are you making? What smells so good?’ I’m making chowders, Amber’s making cookies, there’s bread or crumb cakes in the oven… it smells fantastic,” says Wayne Jr. “Yesterday a man came in and bought three pies. You know it’s good if they buy three at a time.”
