Adam's Apples

Surrounded by the plastic and newsprint that kept it over the winter, this 2025 GoldRush apple proved still good to eat in June of 2026.  ¶  As things turned out, my eyes were bigger than my stomach when I squirreled away a score of these apples last fall to eat in April.  ¶  But no matter: GoldRush is a phenomenal keeper apple , still good in June. This is my last one.

Whan that April with his showres soot is when (whan?) GoldRush, that king of keepers, is ready to eat.  ¶  It's also when I see how the ones I laid down in my refrigerator in December have fared in my home newsprint-and-perforated-plastic-bag storage system.

This wrinkled, rubbery apple tastes better than anything in supermarkets this month.  ¶  Click to view up close and personal.  ¶  The texture is not bad either.

No wonder they call keepers "winter apples." I got two pecks of GoldRush apples today.

Long have I marveled at the wonderful keeping qualities of GoldRush , a modern variety developed by the PRI Co-op . Packed well, GoldRush keeps in my ordinary refrigerator, peaking in April and still quite tasty in June . So today, six months out, let's sample the fall 2017 harvest. And while we are at it, the 2016 harvest too.

In this photograph, Lodi (left) and GoldRush clasp hands across the seven barren months that divide one harvest from another. Lodi , the tapered green fruit at left, is the harbinger of the new harvest, the first and only apple at farmers market. GoldRush was picked last October and has spent its days in my mudroom and refrigerator. Let's see how they compare.

This bag held my stash of Gold Rush apples for two and a half seasons. It smells wonderful.

Photographed June 11 I'm still eating the Gold Rush apples I laid down last Halloween and began eating in April.

April is the cruelest month for apples, so far from the harvest yet too early for fresher reinforcements from the southern hemisphere. But in April, two varieties stand out: Remarkable Lady Alice , which improves (to a point) in storage, and the phenomenal Gold Rush , perhaps the greatest keeper ever . Since I am lucky to have a supply of both this year, this head-to-head taste-off became inevitable.

When I started this blog in 2008 it would never have occurred to me to hoard apples throughout the winter so that I could enjoy them in mid-May. Fortunately, I've learned a thing or two since then.

Half a year after picking, the Gold Rush apple is a fabulous, fabulous keeper. I liked this apple to begin with, but confess I really did not know what to make of claims like this one from a grower: We grow and sell hundreds of bushels of Goldrush every year directly to consumers who proudly show us samples of Goldrush they picked at our orchard the year before. (Emphasis added.)

Gold Rush (L) and Blushing Golden on a day in late fall Two ribbed, conical, yellow late-season keeper apples with partial red blushes, in between medium and large. Blushing Golden , at right, is larger, yellower, and with a livelier, more-saturated orange-red blush. Gold Rush is more elongated and conical, with a streakier and more-subdued bronze-red blush over a more-subdued green yellow, flecked with brown.

Gold Rush originated at the Purdue Horticulture Research Farm in West Lafayette, Indiana, where it was named "GoldRush" in honor of (1) its color, (2) a purported "rush" of flavor, and (3) some goofy marketing theory that says if you jam two words together and capitalize letters in the middle, more people will buy the apple. Sorry guys, but nobody calls it that, and it is a tribute to the actual qualities of this variety, not your marketing acumen, that people like it enough to reinterpret the name back into English. Gold Rush is a medium-sized ribbed apple with waxy yellow skin (tinged with green) flecked with dark lenticels. A light bronze blush shows where the sun has been.