Martinelli's

The Martinelli's story begins in Valley Maggia, Switzerland in 1843, with the birth of Stephano Martinelli (the S. in S. Martinelli's!). He and one of his eight siblings, Luigi, made their way to California and ended up farming apples in modern-day Watsonville, CA. They started a soda-water business and eventually began selling fermented hard cider. With Prohibition on the horizon, they teamed up with Professor Kruse of UC Berkeley, who helped them to develop a pasteurization process for preserving un-fermented (not "hard" cider) apple juice in glass bottles. Today, Martinelli's produces a wide range of apple juices and sparkling (carbonated, but not fermented) ciders, and recently planted their first company-owned orchard to begin producing organic home-grown ciders.