But when Tony and Susan Thorogood moved to Burra 20 years ago and began experimenting with growing a range of produce, they found apples to be the star performers.

"Apple trees can handle quite warm conditions, but they love cold winters, and some of the coldest winters in SA are in the hills here," Tony said.

"We trialed a whole range of fruits, but apples were the ones that always pulled through."

Tony was born in London but migrated to Australia at the age of nine. Later, while indulging his love of travel, he met Susan in the Yorkshire Dales in England.

The couple returned to Australia, found a 40 hectare block in the hilly country around Burra, and fell in love with the property's character.

The Thorogoods originally began selling their apples through an organic market in Adelaide.

"The returns we were getting for the apples meant they weren't worth producing," Tony said.

"As soon as we got into cider, we didn't look back."

Being an organic and chemical-free apple producer and cider maker was crucial to Tony.

"I believe diseases, to a large extent, are caused by the sort of food we eat, and particularly the additives in foods," he said.

That is another reason why Burra was a perfect place to grow the apples, with pest and disease pressures low.

"From the time we first planted the apple trees, we didn't sell cider for 10 years," Tony said.

"The trees take about five years to start producing, and then we had to build the cellar.

"But it took less than a year to perfect the cider blend."

Former premier Rob Kerin opened the Thorogoods of Burra mud brick cellar door in 1999.

The business is kept fairly small, with Tony and Susan handpicking all the fruits themselves.

"We work with barrels, and do between 60 to 100 a year," Tony said.

Tony says the book he has written - and which Susan edited - 'Cider, Drink it, Make it, Cook with It' was three years in the making.

It began with Tony wanting to share his knowledge of cider making.

"I had started to research cider making in Australia, which no one had ever looked at before," he said.

He also undertook a Churchill Fellowship, which allows Australians to travel overseas to research an area that is their 'passion' and which they are already skilled.

* Full Our People report in Stock Journal, November 19 issue.