Cider Making

Decades of craft. 21st century production techniques. A real love for making cider. Our Cornish Cydermasters make the Healeys magic happen…

Our Orchards

With the first commercial orchard in Cornwall, we’re head over heels for apples and what they can do. From the first blossom to final flavour, our seven different varieties are an essential part of the Healeys taste.

Our apples, along with other British varieties, are tipped into our apple bays before continuing their journey.

From September to early December, 2,000 tonnes of apples make their way through our press house. They're washed, mashed and pressed to extract delicious juice, which is then piped over to our production halls to start the fermentation process.

Fermenting

With tanks full of fresh Cornish apple juice, 21 degrees is the ideal temperature for the yeast to work its magic turning sugar into alcohol.

How do we get our cyder perfect? Our 50,000 litre vats have specialised temperature controlling equipment. It ensures the entire fermentation process happens at the right speed and produces the best cyder.

Bottling

Whether it’s our signature cider bottles, our large scrumpy flagons, our ornate country wine bottles or anything in between, our new, fully automated line can handle it all – including the packaging of both crown and screw caps.

Rattler Original 500ml bottles are now available in supermarkets nationwide. Find your nearest store on the map here

If you’d like to see our modern facilities in action – the bird’s-eye view you get from our guided tour will have your mind boggling. Book a guided tour to see for yourself. Who knew making cider could be so high-tech?

Kegging

And then there’s our manual filler (which packs our 2ltr and 5ltr bottles), our Bag in the Box machine and our keg plant – which can fill up to 500 kegs a day.

Our new keg line is due to be installed in 2020 for more products to be available on draught.

Cyder Making Tours

For nearly 40 years, we’ve been dedicated to making cider taste as good as it gets. And as more and more people enjoy drinking our cider, we’ve had to grow to keep up with demand. In 2015, we invested £3.5 million into a brand new bottling plant and production facility – more than tripling the quantities of Rattler, Cornish Gold and Classic Healeys we can make.

Climb up our two-storey cyder vat, and take to our aerial walkway. You’ll see our bottles bumble along the production line, fill up from one of our 12 new 50,000 litre storage tanks and pass through our tunnel pasteurisation process, before making their way into four separate packaging lines in the production hall. It’s all about ensuring every bottle tastes its very best, with leading-edge technology helping make that possible.

View Guided Tours