By Charles Shack, Senior Reporter
LAFAYETTE, N.Y. Down Lords Hill Road, past the wind machines that have stood watch over the apple flowers since 1956, sits a working farm that two strangers started together in 1911. George Skiff was an onion farmer from the north side of Syracuse. Andrew Beak ran a dairy operation. They met at a farmers market, shook hands on a partnership, and put apple trees in the ground at the south end of Onondaga County.
One hundred and fifteen years later, that farm runs 700 acres of orchards on a property that spans more than 1,000 acres total, presses cider sold across three Northeast states, distills small-batch spirits inside the first licensed distillery Onondaga County ever issued, hosts a 4,000-capacity summer concert series that draws national touring acts, and pulls visitors from across Central New York every fall weekend for one of the largest pick-your-own operations in the state.
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Beak and Skiff Apple Orchards is the kind of place Syracuse families tend to take for granted. It should not be.
From a handshake to a fifth generation
The early decades of the orchard read like a hard-won case study in how Central New York farms survive. The 1920s saw the family begin selling apples to grocers like Victory and A&P. A drought wiped out the foliage in 1937. A late-spring freeze killed the entire 1945 crop. The family installed smudge pots in 1949 to fight off frost, added irrigation in 1951, and in 1956 became the first orchard in the Northeast to use wind machines to push cold air out of the valley before it could damage the fruit. Controlled atmosphere storage rooms, the technology that lets a September apple stay crisp through winter, arrived in 1960.
The pivot to consumers came in 1975, when Beak and Skiff opened the property to the public for pick-your-own. Cider production followed in 1979, when the family also developed a flash-pasteurize process for wholesale distribution that gave the product a 90-day shelf life. Hard cider launched in 2001. By 2010 the family had spun up 1911 Established Distillery, the first holder of a distillery license in Onondaga County and the first Onondaga producer to make gin. In 2013 the orchard planted roughly 15,000 new trees and rebuilt the Apple Hill Campus into the agritourism complex visitors see today. A cold-brew coffee plant joined the operation in 2019.
The fifth generation now runs the business. Eddie Brennan, the maternal grandson of co-founder George Skiff, became president in 2016 at age 35, his grandfather having handed over the reins (in Brennan’s own words) “very, very quickly.” His cousin Pete Fleckenstein, who carries the title of General Manager, Fresh Fruit and Beverages, oversees roughly 350,000 apple trees and the day-to-day growing schedule. Richard Beak, also of the fifth generation, runs the fresh juice plant and cold-brew coffee operation. Jackie Beak-Tubbs handles logistics and runs the packing plant. Mack Hueber serves as chief financial officer and as general manager of the family’s hemp processing facility. Marianne Brennan, Eddie’s wife, is co-owner and chief marketing officer. The company employs about 200 people on the apple side of the business and another 50 on the cannabis side.
Twenty varieties, and a calendar built around them
The orchard cultivates roughly 20 apple varieties on its LaFayette acres. The picking calendar is precise, because each variety ripens on its own schedule. Ginger Gold and Paula Red lead off in late August. McIntosh, Gala, Honeycrisp, and SnapDragon hit through mid-September. Cortland and Macoun follow in late September. Empire and Red Delicious open October. Fuji and RubyFrost arrive mid-month. Northern Spy, Golden Delicious, Ida Red, and Jonagold close out late October. Evercrisp and Pink Lady, both late-season varieties, hold the calendar into early November.
That kind of staggered harvest is what allows the farm to keep its general store, bakery, cider press, and tasting room running for roughly ten consecutive weeks each fall. Tree count on the property is reported at more than 350,000, the count Pete Fleckenstein manages from bud break through harvest. The 2025 New York apple crop came in at roughly 30.5 to 31 million bushels statewide, near the five-year average of 32.4 million and second only to Washington in national production, according to the U.S. Apple Association.
The distillery that came out of the orchard
The 1911 Established Distillery sits one mile from the main orchard at 2708 Lords Hill Road. It opened in 2010 and was the first business to hold a distillery license in Onondaga County. The production floor runs a 19-plate copper column alongside copper pot stills.
The flagship is a triple-distilled vodka made from fresh-pressed apple cider rather than grain. The same base spirit becomes the backbone of the 1911 gin. The lineup runs much wider than most Central New York drinkers realize. The vodka shelf carries eight expressions: Premium (375 ml and 750 ml), Honeycrisp, Loganberry, Blueberry, Orange Creamsicle, Cold Brew, Vanilla Chai, and Candy Corn. The whiskey shelf carries another eight: a Bourbon, a Bourbon Cream, an Empire Rye, a Straight Rye, an Applewood Smoked Malt, an American Single Malt, a Sweet Tea Whiskey, and the Cider Donut Bourbon. Beyond that the distillery produces gin (375 ml and 750 ml), an apple brandy, a pommeau, a maple expression, and a five-flavor canned cocktail line of Whiskey Cola, Lemon Tea Vodka, Honeycrisp Mule, Spiked Nitro Coffee, and Lafayette Lemonade. Bourbons and whiskeys age in American White Oak No. 3 char barrels inside the on-site rickhouse. The Cider Donut Bourbon is finished with brown sugar and is built to taste like the bakery item the cafe sells out front.
The on-site 1911 Tasting Room and Tavern handles the retail and food side of the operation. The room pours flights of hard cider, spirits, and wine, runs a kitchen led by Executive Chef Jeannine Russo that leans into apple-forward dishes, and books live music on a recurring schedule through the warm months. A members-only Distillery Social Club ties regulars to early access on releases and private tastings. The brand has played with national-name partnerships when it makes sense locally. In late August 2021, then-Syracuse senior guard Buddy Boeheim shot a video for the orchard as one of his first Name, Image, and Likeness deals after the NCAA opened the door to college athlete sponsorships. “Beak and Skiff was really my first local thing,” Boeheim told The Daily Orange. “I grew up going to that orchard so it was a good connection.”
Cider donuts, weddings, and the summer concert series
The cafe and bakery on the Apple Hill Campus turns out fresh apple cider donuts every fall day the orchard is open. Those donuts have been pressed back into the spirits side of the business as well. The 1911 Cider Donut hard cider, blended with brown sugar and warm spices, is built around the same flavor profile as the bakery item that put a generation of Central New York kids in the back seat of a station wagon every September. By 2022, the cider operation was producing close to two million gallons of 1911 Hard Cider per year, distributed into New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
The Apple Hill Campus also functions as a wedding venue, with the wedding side of the business listed at 4473 Cherry Valley Turnpike in LaFayette. The property accommodates 200 to 250 guests across its open hillside grounds, with packages built around outdoor ceremonies and rustic-leaning receptions.
Summer brings the concert series, one of the largest annual outdoor music runs in Central New York. Promoter DSP Shows books the slate, which seats roughly 4,000 on the lawn (chairs and blankets are pushed to the back half of the field). The 2026 lineup runs 13 confirmed dates: An Evening with Cake on May 30, Hot Mulligan on June 5, Dark Star Orchestra on June 12, Whiskey Myers on June 14, An Evening with Wilco on June 16, Charley Crockett on his Age of the Ram Tour on June 18, Dustin Lynch on June 19, The Head and the Heart on their 15th anniversary tour July 31, Jesse Welles on his Red Tour August 1, Lake Street Dive on August 5, Cole Swindell on August 6, Slightly Stoopid’s Road Trippin’ tour on August 16, and the Indigo Girls on August 23. On top of the concert run, Syracuse Jazz Fest will mark its 40th anniversary at Beak and Skiff July 9 through 12, with Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue and Tower of Power among the headliners across the four days. Admission to the festival is free.
National rankings, and a Syracuse-shaped fingerprint
USA Today readers have voted Beak and Skiff the best apple orchard in America five times: in 2015, 2017, 2020, 2021, and 2024. The 2025 list moved Lyman Orchards in Connecticut to the top spot and dropped LaFayette to fifth, though the orchard remained on the ten-best ranking. Time Out New York covered the rebrand of that 2025 list on September 26, 2025, noting that “the 114-year-old family-run farm was just named the fifth-best apple orchard in the United States” and that the recognition came against a field of more than 27,000 apple growers nationwide. The same property has earned Travelers’ Choice recognition on Tripadvisor and is regularly cited by I Love NY and the New York State agritourism trade as a flagship of the Central New York visitor economy.
The diversification has been more aggressive than most outsiders realize. The family launched Ayrloom, a cannabis brand built on top of the orchard infrastructure, after New York legalized recreational adult-use sales. The brand entered the legal market in December 2022. By calendar year 2025, Ayrloom had pulled roughly $62.7 million in New York sales according to data from cannabis analytics firm Headset, ranking number one statewide in beverages, topicals, and tinctures and number two in vape pens. Inc. magazine reported in 2024 that the cannabis division had grown to roughly three times the size of the apple business in revenue terms. Eddie Brennan has framed the move as a way to keep the farm itself viable for the next generation. “1911 in a lot of ways saved the family farm,” he told Family Business Magazine. He has used a sharper line about how the family thinks about its long history: “We’re really a startup, a 110-year-old startup.”
Why a 115-year-old farm still matters
Marianne Brennan, the chief marketing officer and Eddie’s wife, has put it about as plainly as a fifth-generation owner ever does. “There is nothing like a crisp fall day on the farm,” she said, “warm cider donut in hand, surrounded by friends and family.” That sentence is the entire pitch.
The orchard is open Thursday through Sunday during peak season, with hours running 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Sunday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The farm closes Monday through Wednesday in the off-weeks. Pick-your-own runs late August through early November, weather permitting. The distillery, tasting room, and tavern operate on their own seasonal schedule and are typically closed during the deepest part of winter. The town of LaFayette itself, which the farm helps anchor, has a population of about 4,877 according to the most recent American Community Survey estimate, served by a single school district that runs a junior-senior high school of roughly 376 students and the C. Grant Grimshaw elementary school of about 393.
What started as a handshake between an onion farmer and a dairy farmer is now a business that has outlasted two world wars, the Great Depression, the collapse of dozens of Northeast family farms, and the disruption of the cannabis legalization wave. The fifth generation is running it. The trees are still in the ground on Lords Hill Road. And every fall the donuts come out of the fryer, the cider runs through the press, and the parking lot fills up with cars from every corner of Central New York.
Some institutions earn their place. This one earned it 15,000 trees, one wind machine, and 115 Septembers at a time.
Related on CNY Signal: Highland Forest, the county’s 2,759-acre park, Beaver Lake Nature Center in Lysander, and CNY Signal community coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Beak and Skiff Apple Orchards open?
Beak and Skiff was founded in 1911 when George Skiff, an onion farmer from the north side of Syracuse, met dairy farmer Andrew Beak at a farmers market. The two shook hands on a partnership and put apple trees in the ground at the south end of Onondaga County. The orchard is now in its fifth generation and runs 700 acres of orchards on a property that spans more than 1,000 acres.
Where is the 1911 Established Distillery?
The 1911 Established Distillery sits one mile from the main orchard at 2708 Lords Hill Road in LaFayette. It opened in 2010 and was the first business to hold a distillery license in Onondaga County. The production floor runs a 19-plate copper column alongside copper pot stills, and the flagship is a triple-distilled vodka made from fresh-pressed apple cider rather than grain.
How many apple trees does Beak and Skiff manage?
The farm reports more than 350,000 apple trees on the property. The orchard cultivates roughly 20 apple varieties, with a staggered harvest that runs from Ginger Gold and Paula Red in late August through Evercrisp and Pink Lady in early November. Pete Fleckenstein, who serves as General Manager of Fresh Fruit and Beverages and is a fifth-generation cousin of president Eddie Brennan, oversees the growing schedule.
What concerts are at Beak and Skiff in 2026?
Promoter DSP Shows has 13 dates booked at the Apple Hill Campus for the 2026 summer concert series, including An Evening with Cake on May 30, Wilco on June 16, Charley Crockett on June 18, The Head and the Heart on July 31, Lake Street Dive on August 5, and the Indigo Girls on August 23. Syracuse Jazz Fest will mark its 40th anniversary on the property July 9 through 12 with free admission, headlined by Trombone Shorty and Tower of Power.
What innovations does Beak and Skiff use to protect crops?
The family installed smudge pots in 1949 to fight off frost and added irrigation in 1951. In 1956 they became the first orchard in the Northeast to use wind machines to push cold air out of the valley before it could damage fruit. Controlled atmosphere storage rooms, the technology that lets a September apple stay crisp through winter, arrived in 1960.
Who runs Beak and Skiff today?
Eddie Brennan, the maternal grandson of co-founder George Skiff, became president in 2016 at age 35. His cousin Pete Fleckenstein is General Manager of Fresh Fruit and Beverages. Richard Beak runs the fresh juice plant and cold-brew coffee operation. Jackie Beak-Tubbs handles logistics and the packing plant. Mack Hueber serves as chief financial officer. Marianne Brennan, Eddie’s wife, is co-owner and chief marketing officer. The company employs about 200 people on the apple side and another 50 on the Ayrloom cannabis side.
