Ruby Mac or RubyMac? I don’t know. What I do know is, the McIntosh apple — and in lots of instances this sport mutation of it, the Ruby Mac — is an apple folks both tremendous love or tremendous hate, and I all the time assume something like that’s fascinating. One thing that conjures up sturdy reactions is, to me, going to be an fascinating one thing irrespective of the way you slice it — a guide or album or apple or expertise with a mixture of one-star and five-star evaluations is doing to be a extra fascinating state of affairs than one thing with a scattering of three-stars. This apple, I believe, is like that for lots of people — although I believe a number of the individuals who hate it hate some grocery retailer model of it that has become an ORB OF MEDIOCRITY in storage.

As a result of hey, this apple is fucking legit.

Let’s discuss it.

My assessment of a Ruby Mac from Manoff Orchard, PA, mid-Oct:

The colour of the Ruby Mac — and most of the McIntoshes I’ve eaten — is this sort of muddy sangria purple coloration that I actually love. The form and coloration of it typically remind me much less of an apple and extra of an heirloom tomato like a Cherokee Purple or a Tommy Parmesan or a River-Drowned Winelump and okay solely a kind of is actual I didn’t really feel like Googling a bunch of tomato variants, I have already got an excessive amount of apple info inside my head to be wholesome and sane.

The odor coming off this explicit PLUMP BOY was intense, maybe probably the most intense apple I accomplished sniffed this 12 months — the aroma was not simply berry-forward however as if I used to be smelling the scent wafting off a bowl of crushed berries. Strawberry, sure, however blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, all of the berries. So highly effective that I had it in my workplace for quarter-hour as I went inside to get a digital camera and do another fast issues, and I got here again in and my entire workplace was redolent with the aroma.

That made me fear that it was too lengthy off the tree and was gonna be a mush-slug of an apple, only a mealy tongue-scrubbing mess —

However that fear didn’t come to (pun not meant till now) fruition.

As a result of holy fuck this was a superb apple.

Loopy juice bomb apple. Like a grenade filled with apple juice.

The flavour itself is vinous, which is a phrase folks use to imply it tastes like wine — and generally I discover that phrase overused, however not right here. It’s not a particularly wealthy purple like, “Ah sure, this tastes like a 2016 Tempranillo grown within the Douro Valley of Portugal beneath the shade of a giant man that smelled strongly of Portuguese egg tarts, or pastel de nata.” It was type of like, hey, you ever had a very good, actually fundamental purple desk wine? Like that. It’s purple wine up entrance after which, curiously, white wine on the end, and all all through was this actually pretty berry brightness.

The feel was delicate, just like the Jonathan, however not so delicate it was problematic, and nowhere close to mealy. Truthfully the feel of it made it quick to eat — I do assume there’s this Venn diagram of HOW LONG AN APPLE TAKES TO CHEW vs HOW LONG IT TAKES FOR THE FLAVOR TO DISSIPATE, and ideally, the chew lasts not so long as the flavour, and that’s completely true right here. The flavour is current and assertive lengthy after you’ve eaten the entire apple.

Actually nice apple. If you happen to don’t love this apple then I don’t love you okay I’m simply kidding come again it’s okay if we like various things.

Let’s name it an 8.7 and head again to camp.

Video assessment right here.

By accident slo-mo video of it right here.

Ruby Mac: Seems like a tomato, tastes like berries and desk wine, child

Opinions to date this 12 months: Honeycrisp, Sweetie, Crimson Crisp, Knobbed Russet, Cortland, Maiden’s Blush, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Reine des Reinettes, Ingrid Marie, Hudson’s Golden Gem, Holstein, Suncrisp, Ashmead’s Kernel, Opalescent, Orleans Reinette, Black Gilliflower, Crimson Scrumptious Double Function, Jonathan