KINDERHOOK-  Apple trees across the Capital Region are blossoming.  And already one grower is thinking about the apples that won't make it to market.

It will be a long time before apples appear on these trees at Golden Harvest Farms in Kinderhook.

But inside the apple storage building Tom Crowell and Derek Grout are already harvesting.

They're bottling their new product, Core,  a vodka made from blemished apples that stores won't accept, and that the farm would have to make into cider.

Tom Crowell, who owns a brewery in Chatham, came up with the idea.

"I had seen an article talking about the French tradition of fruit distillation.  My day job is with the Columbia Land Conservancy doing farm land protection work.  And it occurred to me that this is another route that Hudson Valley farms could take to expand their business and keep farming viable in the Hudson Valley," Crowell said.

Crowell approached Derek Grout whose family owns Golden Harvest Farms.  Grout liked the idea seeing it as a unique way to draw more people to the farm.

The apples are pressed into cider, yeast is added, after a week the fermented mixture is boiled and the alcohol is steamed off, or stripped, and collected.  The process is repeated two more times before the alcohol is charcoal filtered, and mixed with purified water before bottling.

"It's a lot of hard work but it's given me a lot of passion to continue farming and learning more about growing apples," Grout said.

When Tom and Derek came up with this idea three years ago there were 50 farm distilleries in the country.  Now there are 150, it's a growing market.  But this distillery is a first for New York state.  It's the only farm distillery licensed to sell directly to the public.

"There's a huge emphasis on local products here especially.  But with Golden Harvest producing heir own vodka, people have been asking about this in the store for six months now," Michael Castellano of Kinderhook Wine and Spirits said.

Core vodka is 80 proof and will be available for sale Thursday at the farm.

Tom and Derek also want to make "Harvest Spirits" a green business at some point, using solar and wind power to run their operation.