Today, in the "Entrepreneurship of the post -apocalypse" the story of the tiny company Pijma Cider, whose founders want to change the world a little - make people understand the sidra and stop drinking a chemical body. Thanks to our friends from the button for help in preparing the heading!
This section has a sponsor thanks to the button for love for good texts The button once, when Nikitin's parents sat peacefully in the kitchen and dinner, a powerful explosion was heard in the apartment-as if some kind of pipe or household appliances rushed. They went around the rooms and the bathroom, but did not find anything strange. While the parents tried to find out that and where it took off into the air, an alarmed neighbor came running to the sounds and began to call the doorbell. Going into the hallway, they finally realized what happened - Paul was a sidrom. Left in the closet in a giant bottle, he burst and almost flooded the room. This happens when your son is a novice sidrovar. “Max and I began to be interested in all this from seven years,” says Nikita. - We were neighbors in the country, and adults constantly made all sorts of apple juices and mash. We drank all this, and then grew up and thought about starting to make our cord.
I met Max and Nikita on one famous Open-Eir Festival. My friends and I ended in alcohol, and we went to wander around the tent camp, hoping to get something. In confusion, looking around, I suddenly heard a cry: "Fresh with a whisk!" It turned out that the guys who sold freshly squeezed apple juice all day, improved their drink in the evening - they began to mix it with whiskey. Next to their counter there was a strange wooden unit with the inscription "Der Rausschmeißer". I looked at him for a long time, and then still asked: - And who are you? And what are you doing? “We came here to trade apple juice, but actually we make a cider in life,” the guys answered me. - Well, the cider is doing everything now, it is also fashionable. “Yes, but only we will pasteurize it.” - How's milk? For what?
So I made friends with the small company Pijma Cider. A wooden device, similar to an instrument of torture, turned out to be a press for apples, and Nikita with Max-beginner entrepreneurs, who have been devoting all their free time to cooking cider for several years and dream of someday starting to make money on this in order to leave their main works and become professional sidrovars. About the same, our samizdat has existed for the same time. People who throw everything burn office clothes and turn hobbies into a profession - this is one of the main signs of the future, the very one that we talk about every week in the "Entrepreneurship of the post -apocalypse."
***
“About five years ago, we decided: we have been doing home cider for so long that you can try to reach a more professional level,” says Nikita Semenikhin, one of the founders of Tychma. - We are me and my childhood friend Maxim Bashtan. First, we collected apples from our summer cottages, then began to steal from the neighboring. They waited until the hosts left, or climbed to them into gardens at night. Probably, they were puzzled when in the morning they left the house, but there are no apple trees. First, they squeezed the juice from them on an ordinary Soviet juicer, but in fact, a special press needed such things-with a juicer, apples are crushing non-sea, part of the pulp remains. And the press processes 60 - 70% of the apple into juice.
A year ago, Nikita and Max finally made the first truly large batch-about a ton-and then acquired a press. In general, if you look at the page with the history of the company, it looks entertaining:
2012. A lot of sugar, all the fuck exploded.
2013. Concentrates, irregular yeast. The result did not suit us.
2014. We decided on the style and recipe, but ... they drank everything themselves.
2015. Learning on mistakes: greatly increased volume. We began to share the sidr with a large circle of friends, carry our cider to parties and show strangers.
2016. Opening of production-Sidrea. Meet!
“To make the sidr tasty, you need to use acidic and sweet apples in suitable proportions,” Nikita explains. - Even to prepare the drink, you need tannins. For example, we use oak chips: dry oak branches, soak and boil. With the help of a special grinder, we cut the apples for juice into porridge - so that then there is no pulp, and put under the press. Then we pour it into the barrels, and he defends there. Further yeast is added - we now ordered special, sider from the UK. And, when the air comes out and the liquid stops gurgling, it can be poured into bottles.
And then with the sidr of "tansy" exactly what distinguishes him from the rest. At first, glucose is added to it so that the yeast remaining in the drink begins to “eat” sugar and release carbon dioxide. From this, the drink becomes stronger and more sod. And then they pasteurize it - they kill the yeast with warmth so that the bottle does not explode. The remaining sugar makes the drink sweet. “And at the same time, he remains quite strongly carbonated,” says Nikita. - Usually it is difficult to achieve such a degree of soda, and few people do it, because it takes a lot of time.
As the creators of “Tansy” explain, their task is not so much to get rich on the sidra, but to revive the culture of the use of this drink. In pre -revolutionary times, he was very popular in Russia, and constantly drank it in his summer residences. And then - under the Soviet Union - for unknown reasons, he disappeared, and people even forgot what this drink should be in general.
“Today he was loved again, and the youth often buys cider,” says Nikita. - But at the same time, many drink a divorced concentrate. It's like Jaguar in banks. But I want, after all, people know how the natural product differs from chemistry, and consciously approached its choice.
“We somehow exploded a whole box-it’s good that we were not nearby.” In Russia, if you are engaged in alcohol production, it is not very simple to establish your company. Firstly, not all festivals and markets can be participated-some of them are simply prohibited. To sell your product in bars, you need special documentation. “Before, everything was easier,” says Nikita. - The main thing was that all sanitary standards be respected. Then you could just register the company and start selling. And now there is an excise tax of 9 rubles, and with a large volume of the product manufactured, an excise fee can amount to almost ten percent of the cost. Another problem is EGAIS, a single state automated information system for taking into account the volume of production and ethyl alcohol turnover. To register in it, you need half a million rubles - this is just as much as we are going to invest in our project in the near future. It is clear that alcohol is not toys, and it would be strange if the state supported alcohol producers and at the same time would not regulate their activities. But still, to open your own business, from a financial point of view, is very difficult. It’s also a shame that those who make chemistry like “jaguar” are the same approach as those who produce natural cider.
Nikita and Maxim were handed out their first large party to friends and several friends who arranged different events. At first they were afraid that there would be no demand for their products - too many people are made by cider. But it turned out that the depth of the market and demand in this area is very great. The party dispersed instantly, and it became clear that it was necessary to increase the power and size of production. Now "Tansy" has a small room outside the city. All this has not been brought yet, but there is already a business plan for the next three years.
“Now, even when we go abroad to relax, we combine it with business,” says Nikita. - For example, we go to local production and look at how they make cider there. And at Maxim at work, the forum of sidrovars was recently blocked at work, because he was constantly sitting there. When there is a favorite thing, it is continuous self -education. Well, in the end, if it does not work out, you can always start making a weapon - if you put a lot of sugar in the cider so that the yeast “overtake” it, and then not pasteurize the drink, it turns out almost a real bomb. We somehow exploded a whole box-it’s good that we were not nearby. In general, the sidrovar is actually a rather dangerous profession.
PS:
If you had a fantastic business idea, you do not need to be shy. Start acting. And if you do not know where to start, you can always ask for advice from the button. BUTTONOther cool businesses:
This section has a sponsor thanks to the button for love for good texts The button once, when Nikitin's parents sat peacefully in the kitchen and dinner, a powerful explosion was heard in the apartment-as if some kind of pipe or household appliances rushed. They went around the rooms and the bathroom, but did not find anything strange. While the parents tried to find out that and where it took off into the air, an alarmed neighbor came running to the sounds and began to call the doorbell. Going into the hallway, they finally realized what happened - Paul was a sidrom. Left in the closet in a giant bottle, he burst and almost flooded the room. This happens when your son is a novice sidrovar.
Text Julia Dudkin Moscow 
Illustration Natalya Yamshchikova St. Petersburg 