Somerville's Bantam Cider Shutting Down

SOMERVILLE, MA — A Somerville-based cider company is hanging it up after a decade of business.

Bantam Cider is closing its taproom in Union Square and only making its product available in retail stores for a few more months. According to a statement on the company's Instagram page, Bantam reached a crossroads where it would have to sacrifice quality to save on production costs.

"As we look into the future, and having recently evaluated various scenarios, we understand now more than ever before, that we would ultimately need to make some compromises to continue to grow," the statement read in part. "The most obvious would have us rethink our choice of ingredients and processes to reduce our expensive production costs. While this could be a savvy business decision, it just isn’t something we want to do, nor is it something we're willing to hand off to someone else to do. In fact, we believe it's the kind of compromise that would kill what we've always considered the ethos of Bantam."

Bantam Cider launched its first cider, Wunderkind, in 2012 and opened a facility on Merriam Street two years later. The business grew to offer more than a dozen ciders distributed across five states.

Bantam Cider is located at 40 Merriam Street.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to better reflect the reasoning behind Bantam Cider's decision to close.