A lot extra, I will pay. Honeycrisps… 
I saw the thread title and came in to mention Honey Crisps. I see this is pretty close to universal here.
I miss Empire. You just can’t get them this far west. They’re a great all-purpose apple.
I am on the other side of the fence. Fujis have a pleasant, subtle flavor that is not overly sweet. The one time I tried a Pink Lady, it tasted like eating perfume. I have a very strong aversion, bordering on allergy, to perfume. To be fair, though, I grew up under a Granny Smith tree.
Our co-op has been selling locally-grown Honeycrisp - took me by surprise because NC is not exactly known for their apples. They are wonderful, and half the price of the ones that are being shipped in from elsewhere. They look a bit different, though - the skin is mostly green, with just a little red to them, while the ones grown elsewhere are just the opposite.
If I can’t find the Honeycrisp, then Cripps Pink is what I buy. These two varieties really are good all-around apples - I bake with them too and they hold up well, plus I don’t need to add as much sugar as I might otherwise.
I love winesaps as well, but it’s been years since I’ve seen them.
Growers had to pay $1.30 per Honeycrisp tree to the developer, the University of Minnesota, but that expired in 2007. Some of the other varieties others are mentioning here (Pinata, Opal, Envy) are still covered by agreements, nicely summarized in this NPR article Want to Grow These Apples?. I think I’ve tried almost all of these varieties, but just this weekend went back and tried a SweetSixteen and later we’ll look for the old-fashioned Haralson, probably the most versatile baking and cooking apple.
We live close to the Mississippi River apple growers in LaCrescent and Lake City Minnesota, and they grows some great apples here. We pay $1.80 per pound this time of year, but that’s a promotional price at the local stores. By the end of the season we get a little tired of even Honeycrisp and try lots of different varieties, mostly Gala and Fuji.
I actually live IN La Crescent MN. Apple blossom drive is a favorite bike route for me
Brian
I tried a new (to me) kind of apple the other day called Pink Pearl. The flesh is pink, it’s very pretty. The flavor is ok, but my favorites for eating out of hand are still Honeycriso and Pink Lady. I used to make apple pies with a combo of Granny Smith and MacIntosh but I haven’t seen the Macs in a long time.
A couple of years ago we had the Apple World Cup at work where we played off various apple varieties against one another. It was a good way for everyone at work to taste a lot of different apples. Two of each variety is sufficient for a heads up match at morning tea.
I think after many rounds Pink Lady won but I wouldn’t bet on it. My personal favorite is Jazz which supplanted* Pink Lady* which had, some years before, taken over from Fuji.
Pie.
Sort of. We still have quite a few- we’ve lost hundreds if not thousands of varieties here as well- but the vast majority of shops just sell the same few varieties; ‘Red Delicious’ is ubiquitous here too, and the most common apples in the average shop aren’t actually local old varieties, they’re either straight up imported fruit or overseas varieties grown in the UK. Most of what you can buy in a UK supermarket has already been mentioned on this thread, in fact. ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’ is about the only exception, which is appearing again lately after even that vanished from shops, pushed out by the red and yellow tasteless. There have been big ‘Bring back British apple’ campaigns over the last 10 years or so, which have helped a little, trying to encourage people to try russets and other apples that look like they have ‘bad skin’.
You still need to go to farm shops and specialist orchards to actually buy most heritage varieties though, even if they do still exist. It’s easier to buy the trees than the actual fruit.
Golden Delicious came and went in the UK supermarkets. Nowadays, at least in my supermarket, there can at least be Early Windsor, Cox’s, Braeburn, and various varieties I don’t particularly care for like Pink Lady, Gala, Jonagold.
The best treat, if you’re near the south-east of England in October, is to go to the national collection open day atBrogdale Farm, near Faversham.
Just got back from Sainsburys, and made a point of checking out the apple display; they had yellow tasteless (as they have long been known in my family) there, in bags aimed at kids…
Braeburn’s actually from New Zealand, as is Gala. I know this because I actually once worked for a few months picking Braeburn and Gala apples at an orchard next door to Braeburn farm, where the Braeburn variety originated.
I don’t know Jonagold, (google says it’s American) or Early Windsor (which does sound quite British).
I’ve just moved to Cornwall, so the South East is a bit far, and I seem to have missed all the local apple events. Boo.
Apple cultivation is pretty fascinating. There are more than 7,500 different types and they usually don’t breed true from seed. They are usually propagated by grafting desirable limbs from one tree to another. It is perfectly possible to have one tree that produces several different types of apples from that process.
There are a ton of apple orchards around here (suburban Boston) and they are quite popular with the white, affluent crowd in the Fall. You get to pay by the bag to pick your own and you usually end up spending more money than you do on all other fruit for the entire year but it is fun enough. I think almost everyone ends up picking more apples than they can possibly eat.
That said, some varieties are quite good. I will never eat a supermarket Red Delicious again in my life after having some of the more obscure orchard fresh cultivars. I am a big fan of some of the more tart varieties.
Honeycrisps are indeed fantastic, but the variety that seems to have the superpower of draining my wallet is the Ambrosia. I eat those like candy.
Last weekend, I was in Ellijay, Georgia, another self-titled “Apple Capital of America”, and picked up a bag of something called “September Wonders”. They’re no Ambrosias, but they’re worth more than I paid for them - sweet and crispy, which is all I ask for in an apple. Also picked up a half-peck of Cameos, which were quickly devoured.
I used to be a huge fan of Galas (and I still eat them). But it seems to me that they’re undergoing RedDeliciousism - buying them is turning into a crap shoot as to whether I’ll get something worth eating, or boring, flavorless mush.
“Red Plastic”. It could be the filter of nostalgia, but I seem to remember when I was a kid eating Red Deliciouses that were, in fact, delicious - sweet, tart, crisp and juicy. So much so that in my mind RDs are the default version of “apple”. But now, as has been pointed out, they’re horrible.
The first time I tried Opals they were fantastic. The next batch was just meh. Different years so maybe it was just a bad season for apples that year. Haven’t found them yet this year. I’ll try them again just because the first batch was so good.
I do like Honeycrisps and Pink Lady and Jazz. I just got some SweeTango today and the one I had for lunch was quite good.
Someone upthread mentioned Winesaps. My grandma had a friend who owned an apple orchard. When my sister and I were kids Grandma would take us apple-picking at her friend’s place. The orchard had a couple different varieties of apples but the Winesaps were my favorite. I haven’t had one in ages, I haven’t even seen them for sale in a long time.
The North Georgia apple store where I bought the Cameos and September Wonders I mentioned in my last post, was also selling Winesaps. I tried a sample, but don’t care for tart apples.
I’ll eat the occasional Arkansas Black, too. But only occasionally - it’s a bit too dry for me, if it make sense to apply that term to a fruit.
You must be the only one. That show only lasted like 5 episodes.
Our favorite of what is available locally is Honeycrisp, but they’re usually the most expensive apple in the store, so when they’re not on sale we eat Fuji and/or Gala, and occasionally Granny Smith. Have to agree about the Red Delicious. They used to be quite good, but we haven’t bought them for several years now. I saw some Pink Ladys in the store last week. I’ll have to get some to try.
I am at this moment eating the last of my 1.99lb Honeycrisps. Went to the store yesterday and they were back up to $3.29lb, so no more Honeycrisps for me this week. 