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Nothing says fall in New York quite like a day spent filling bags with Honeycrisp, sneaking bites of cider doughnuts and maybe sipping a boozy cider before heading home. And if you’re looking for the best spot to do all of that (and more), look no further than Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards in LaFayette, New York.
The 114-year-old family-run farm was just named the fifth-best apple orchard in the United States in USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards for 2025. That’s no small feat, considering there are more than 27,000 apple growers across the country producing more than 11 billion pounds of fruit each year.
Founded in 1911 by dairy farmer Andrew Beak and onion farmer George Skiff, the orchard has grown from a humble hillside operation into a full-on fall playground. Today, Beak & Skiff cultivates about 20 apple varieties, from classic McIntosh to crowd-pleasers like Honeycrisp and Snapdragon. Visitors can go the traditional pick-your-own route or stock up at the farm market, where the cider doughnuts are legendary.
But this isn’t just a place to haul home apples. The Apple Hill Campus has become an agritourism destination in its own right. There’s a café, a treehouse-style play area for kids and for adults, the 1911 Established tasting room, where small-batch ciders, spirits and wines flow freely. Summer even brings a concert series to the orchard’s rolling hills, which makes for a pretty unbeatable picnic backdrop. For anyone who wants to stretch their stay beyond an afternoon, the farm has added on-site vacation rentals so you can literally sleep among the apple trees.
This year’s No. 1 orchard crown went to Lyman Orchards in Connecticut, bumping Beak & Skiff from the top slot it held in 2024. Still, the Central New York favorite has been a repeat champ in the rankings over the past decade, nabbing the top honor in 2015, 2017, 2020, 2021 and 2024.
Beak & Skiff is currently open daily, with extended hours Thursday through Sunday. So if your idea of autumn bliss involves fresh-picked apples, spiced doughnuts and a cider in hand, you know where to head.