You don’t have to settle for Macs, Fujis or Red Delicious when it comes to apples. How about trying a Baldwin or a Porter, a Chenango Red or an Ashmead’s Kernel — as apple horticulturist Roger Swain of Greenfield says “is definitely not for sissies.”

Those varieties are among the group of apples often called “heritage” or “heirloom” or “antique” and they can be found at Monadnock region farmstands if you’re willing to look around and take a chance.

“Whatever you want to call them is fine. ‘Heirloom’ sounds a bit like lacy pillowcases to me,” says Ben Watson of Francestown, who likes the meticulous work involved in grafting old varieties onto existing branches. He says many of the older apples have a crisp, unique taste and some make fantastic cider.

“There’s a lot of vagueness when it comes to old apples,” says Rich Stadnik of Greenfield, the owner of Pup’s Cider Company, which specializes in hard cider.

He said McIntosh apples date from the 18th century and the Yellow Delicious variety is at least 100 years old.

“They really are antiques,” Stadnik says, “but now McIntosh is almost a generic term. Growers in the 1960s and ‘70s put in masses of them. They all come on the market at the same time and people can’t get top dollar. I’ll get calls to buy all I want [for cider] at whatever price I want to pay.”

Swain, who has a variety of heirlooms that have been grafted onto trees on his property, says people need to be adventurous when they go looking for apples in the fall.

“I’m all in favor of the native heirlooms,” he says. “You should go to the farmstands, many will still have one tree. Always shop for the apple you’ve never tasted.”

One problem is that people are reluctant to try an apple that doesn’t look perfect.

“We don’t like russeting,” Swain says, referring to the brownish spots found on many heritage varieties. “We don’t consider that worth eating.”

Stadnik says people can be put off by the look of the older varieties.

“Heirlooms are ugly to the modern eye,” he says. “I find them attractive, but that’s me.”

Like the apples commonly found in supermarkets, most heirloom varieties are best suited for a specific use. As Swain puts it, “You can make cider out of apples you’d never want to eat.”

On a walk through Alyson’s Orchard in Walpole, Stadnik describes the features of various heirlooms found there. The Ashmead’s Kernel is very sharp — “fulsome and robust” and incredible for cider. The Northern Spy is great for pies. Roxbury Russets were an all-purpose apple in colonial days — “one of the pure classics” — and make great cider. Rhode Island Greenings are “a fantastic pie apple, not much use except cooking.”

As eating apples, heirlooms deliver a myriad of tastes and textures not often found in the varieties more widely grown today. Some, like the Ashmead’s Kernel and Roxbury and Golden Russets are dense, with a complex balance of sweetness and acidity that some have described as “serious flavor that’s not for the faint of heart.”

Others such as Porter, Hubbardston Nonesuch, Nodhead and Winter Banana are wonderful for eating, with a brisk flavor and a nice crunch, which helps explain their role as important 19th century market apples. Baldwins, a New England original, are also a great eating apple when grown under the right conditions. According to Stadnik, Norway Hill Orchards in Hancock grows the best-flavored Baldwins he’s ever tasted.

But in colonial days and during the early years of westward expansion in America, Swain says, most apples were not eaten. Instead, they were used to make alcoholic beverages, which became a form of currency.

“A man and a team could build a wall, being paid 50 cents a rod and all the apple brandy he could drink,” Swain said. “Johnny Appleseed became famous, but he was really just bringing booze to the frontier.”

Stadnik says New England towns once measured their wealth in terms of the amount of hard cider they produced.

“Almost entire crops went to make hard cider,” he says. But around 1830 to 1840, beer became the alcoholic beverage of choice.

“Cider went by the wayside, and it’s never recovered,” Stadnik says.

As for growing your own heirloom apples, Swain has a bit of advice: “People say ‘I want to raise apples.’ My first answer is ‘No, you don’t.’”

Growing apples is a challenge. Apples are vulnerable to disease and insects, and spraying is required for most varieties, according to Swain.

“If you do nothing, you probably get nothing,” he says. “A basket at a roadside stand is a bargain compared to raising them yourself.”

Watson says the Franklin County Cider Days festival, held in various locations near Shelburne Falls, Mass., during the first weekend in November, is a great opportunity to learn more about both cider and heirloom apples.

For hard cider recipe, pick up the Sept. 20 edition of the Ledger-Transcript.