An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Unless it’s part of a pie, that is.

Or made into cider.

Actually, never mind the medical advice. Let’s talk about the myriad of ways apples can be served, each more delicious than the last and many on display as part of the fourth annual Olympic Peninsula Apple & Cider Festival.

The autumn tradition, again presented by The Production Alliance, returns Friday, Oct. 9 through Sunday, Oct. 11 to various local restaurants and tasting rooms.

New this year: a streaming dance party and hashtagable art contest to keep the party going, COVID be darned.

This year’s event features a robust combination of local cider and food experiences throughout Jefferson County, said Danny Milholland, director of operations for The Production Alliance, including  “Libations Boxes” (for sale and available to pick up at local beverage producers) and “Harvest Bites” (served up at participating local restaurants throughout the weekend).

Apples are, Milholland said, an important crop in the area and have been for some time.

“They are an important and historic crop out here on the peninsula,” he explained.

“Since the first settlers arrived out here people have been growing apples. And, in fact, in Western Washington there was more of an apple theme back here early on before Eastern Washington apple growing became such a huge part of the culture out there.”

Milholland said the area has seen something of an apple renaissance in the past two decades.

“It’s become increasingly part of our local culture,” he said, both in terms of cider production and local small or mid-scale farms, all of which is being celebrated during the festival.

Also going on at this year’s event, DJ Captain Peacock’s famous local radio show “Dance Party in your Living Room” will be streamed live at Propolis Brewing from 8 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10.

The Captain is known as the “bastard love child between a sexy disco platypus and a virile techno mammoth.”

His spirit was reportedly forged of whirling stardust and Timothy Leary quotes, hammered together in the white hot crucible of warehouse raves and seedy underground clubs. Vanity his greatest vice, the strutting Captain Peacock makes his home on Earth, but the siren song of the cosmic sea constantly calls him to voyage the starry beyond.

His weekly radio show, “Dance Party in Your Living Room,” harkens back to the golden age of radio, an audience glued to the magic vibrations every Saturday night. He mumbles and rants incoherently about all the usual new-age nonsense, “whilst exposing the unsuspecting masses to an awesome array of dance-floor bombs and trippy ear-worms.”

For those seeking to express themselves more directly, this year’s festival will include the “Imagine Apples Challenge.”

Win a basket of locally grown abundance by sharing a song, dance, trick, story, sculpture, or local food recipe. Simply post your entry on your personal Facebook or Instagram page using #ImagineApplesChallenge.

You can also email your entry directly to info@tpaevents.org.

This is an open invitation, event officials said, to add your own vision, creativity and inspiration to fall harvest culture. Submissions can include videos, photos, and poems or other written text.

The deadline for submissions is noon Sunday, Oct. 11, and all submissions will be juried by a panel of festival producers at 5 p.m. that day via livestream.

The winning submission will receive a basket of local goods and products.

Milholland said participants and pickup spots for boxes and bites will continue to be added to the event’s website (www.theproductionalliance.org/events/apple-cider-fest) through the start of the festival.