I first encountered them in Germany and the Netherlands (natch, as it’s originally a Dutch variety), but there are some upstate NY and New England orchards that grow them. Google “Belle de Boskoop Vermont”, for instance.
Ginger Gold is an early-ish apple; late August here in the Midwest. It has the best texture and snap of any apple I have ever eaten. The tart flavor is quite good, too, but it really has a unique melting crunch that is amazing. Addictive.
Gold Rush is a later season apple; late October here. It is tart/sweet, strongly flavored, almost tannic, with a fairly firm texture. It keeps well in the fridge for weeks, and the flavor just gets more complex over time. The skin is slightly rough.
My fantasy orchard would be 48% Ginger Gold and 48% Gold Rush, with 4% anything else (Song of September/Zestar!/Jonagold) to fill in between the two seasons.
You should try McIntosh. They are my favorite apple. Tart enough to make interesting, able to be used in baking, and quite crisp when purchased new. Of course, my love for them goes back to when at least half of the cultivars you mention didn’t get offered in American stores, so your choices were much more limited.
McIntosh grows well in the northeast, but does poorly on the west coast. East coasters who move to the west are usually disappointed in the McIntoshes they get here.
xkcdagrees.
Mom taught me to mix Jonathans and Winesaps for the most delicious pies. That was in San Diego, so we’d go to Julian and get 'em at the orchards in late October or mid-November.
Alas, nobody up here in Ventura county seems to know what I’m talking about.
–G!
Chuck Wendig’s heirloom apple reviews are highly entertaining. I highly recommend taking a look. Made me literally laugh out loud. In public. Plus, the reviews are actually informative sometimes.
whaddabout cider apples – any recomendations? @california jobcase is correct that Johnny Appleseed was all about apples for cider. Colonial US had a labor problem (beer and barley requires a lot of labor) and a potable water problem, apple cider provided a solution.
Fuji is one of my favorites.
2nd is Golden delicious
One the OP didn’t mention is the Arkansas Black, it’s a tasty tart apple. It needs time in storage before eating. Makes all the difference.
Common wisdom is that cider is better from a blend. Are you making fresh cider or fermented (hard) cider? For fresh apple juice, anything that tastes good to you (ignoring texture) makes good cider. I live in Macintosh country, and I enjoy the local Mac-heavy ciders. For hard cider, they say you want a blend of sweets, sours, and sharps (apples with tannin, astringent apples that aren’t very tasty out-of-hand.) But I met a guy in Quebec who made a truly awesome apple brandy with mostly (only?) Cortlands, and he said his Cortland-based cider was excellent, too.
Johnny Appleseed was real, but he planted cheap seedling apples, most of which weren’t very good. Even not-so-great apples can be used for cider, though.
My husband’s uncle planted some apple trees in his youth. He got four to bearing age. Two tasted terrible (I think they were too sharp, from how he describes them) and he cut them down. I tasted the other two. One was a small, round, attractive yellow apple with a red blush. The flavor was pretty good. It might be worth propagating if it kept more than half an hour after you picked it. 
Actually, I have propagated it, and hope to eventually produce some – apples that don’t keep, and don’t ripen all at once, but slowly ripen over the summer are commercially useless, but okay for a backyard tree. The other was a small green conical apple (shaped like a small red delicious) that was extremely sweet with no offsetting acid. I didn’t care for it. He liked to use it for cider, though, because it had enough sugar to give him a meaningful amount of alcohol.
Had Lemonade apples for the first time today – they were really good! Crisp, sweet, and tangy.
I second Envy as among the consistently best apples that I’ve had. Maybe it’s because I’m up in Canada, but the Honeycrisp that I get in my area is not as good. I’ve also had great experiences with Ambrosia, though it is a bit more one-dimensional than most modern apple varieties.
Another one that I tried recently that blew me away was the SugarBee apple, but I’ve only ever seen it once. It had a very sweet, almost perfume-like flavour - hoping to see more of it in the future.