Flavor: Tangy sweetness with strong brown sugar and berry overtones and a hint of vinous flavor
Approximate Ripening: Late September
Uses: Eating, pies
Trivia: Developed by Cornell University in 1962, a cross between Empire and Northern Spy. While its sister apple, NY 429, was getting all the love and an official name (Fortune), nobody bothered to bestow a moniker on poor NY 428. This is terribly unfair, as Fortune lacks NY 428’s complexity and tangy sweetness.
Notes: You can’t find an uglier duckling in the apple world. Large, squat, lopsided, and ribbed, this apple isn’t much to look at. Even its non-name screams to its unloved nature. Why should we pay attention to an apple that not even a mother could love enough to name? Because when you bite into it, you’ll find that ugly duckling is really a beautiful swan. NY 428 has one of the most complex flavor profiles you’ll find. The underlying tangy sweetness is augmented by tropical notes of sugar-coated berries, and there’s a little hint of vinous flavor in there, too, thanks to its Empire parent. Truly, this apple has a little bit of everything to it. The only thing it lacks is a name! Since its sister apple is Fortune, perhaps this glorious tasting apple should be called “Glory.”