Cider!

[Lughey]

Cider can be pretty great. I have enjoyed Strongbow a few times, but they don't sell it in Quebec. Montrealers might be familiar with the MacAuslan brewery (they make st-ambroise and griffon beer) and they have two ciders that are really grand.

[A Robertson]

You know what? - After reading the many new replies to this thread, I couldn't stand it anymore! I just dashed to the supermarket, bought me 4 pints of cheap 'Crofters Cider' and made me a 'Ploughmans Lunch' (crusty bread, an apple, pickled onions, and a chunk of cheese with some Branston pickle). I drank and ate the lot. I feel good now. Delicious.

[Pleater]

I used to live on an estate in the Midlands,(of England) where there were numerous crab apple trees. They were very various in the quality of fruit they produced, but one quite close to me had large sweet fruit with a soft pink flesh when ripe.

I used to make cider from them most years, mixing them with wild apples which were common in the hedgerows where I walked my dog.

One year when there was a huge crop I made apple wine, which was good, but the slightly pink tinged cider was excellent every year. The juice for cider should be rather too tart for drinking - though if it is sweetened by an artificial sweetener it might very well turn out OK as the yeast can ferment it out and there still be a sweet taste.

Now I am hoping for a good crop of apples this year, as last year it was very poor due to the early warmth being followed by a cold wet week which kept the bees away from the blossom. I still have all the fermenting stuff washed and set ready to use from last year, as there was nothing to process.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[TheOfficialBren]

What is apple wine? I have never had it before. How does it differ from cider?

[Destin_scot]

Bren,

Apple wine would be something like a very strong cider, probably fairly clear, alcohol content probably between 12 and 15%, usually still, but could be sparkling.

Anne,

Here in the SE USA, we have native crab apples, but we also have a native hawthorne that has been used to make preserves, jellies, wines ETC., for hundreds of years. The fruit is ripe in May, hence it's called a Mayhaw. The fruit is small, 1/2 inch to about 3/4 inch in diameter. The flesh of the fruit ranges in colour from white, and pale yellow to a dark pink, uniquely fragrant, and quite tart. It makes an incredible jelly. I made some sparkling cider from this a few years ago, and it was very tasty. But I would definitely change the recipe the next time I make it. Hopefully, I'll have a good enough crop this year, to try the new recipe and see how it turns out.

[TheOfficialBren]

Awesome! Thanks, Destin_Scot.

I went to BevMo the other day and checked out ciders. OMG!! Some of them were nearly $10 per bottle!!!

Is it just me or is BevMo a little on the pricey side with all of their merchandise (not just cider)?

[Stoo]

Want to try Scrumpy,eh? Well before anything else is said, if you do, BE CAREFULL! It also goes under the name of rough cider and it kicks like a mule and in some places of my knowledge its sails under the name of "stun-um", for very good reason. Rough cider is usually found in the Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon, Dorset regions of England and no doubt there are other areas that produce it as well that I don't know about. I am not aware of cider of any sort being produced in Scotland, but it might be and I have never seen scrumpy/rough cider for sale in Scotland, but again, it might be somewhere.

You need to understand that Scrumpy/rough cider, bears no relation to the strongbow/magners type cider. They are made from apple juice, both styles are called cider and you can drink it, but after that the similarity stops abruptly!

My uncle was born and bred in Gloucester and he used to tell me about stun-um, said he saw a man walk home backwards after a night on it. Uncle Reg lived to the grand age 106 so it must have some good properties.

[Pleater]

Usually I cold ferment the cider.

For an apple wine I would use more sweet apples, crush, sieve, mince up some seedless raisins and add them to the juice, let it steep for two or three days with a sterilising tablet, rack off the sediment and then ferment it warm using a Chablis yeast. Once the first ferment settled down I would add syrup with perhaps a little honey dissolved, possibly twice, gradually cooling it to room temperature then bottle it and wait for it to drop a sediment.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Grizzly]

Sounds delicious Anne. It could be a strange coincidence but am reading this thread with a glass of Frosty Jacks which to my taste is one of the better mass produced ciders and at 7.5% abv packs a bit of a punch too.

[Singlemalt]

I hesitate to paticipate because I really don't know much about cider. One of my earliest drinking experiences featured cider and it's horrific hangover lesson that came later. I have not been attracted to it much since. However, my travels take me often to the French speaking parts of Canada in Quebec and I have noted sort of a cider renassaince there. I notice lots of advertising and taps in the pubs dedicated to it, as Lughey has noted. I have not been tempted yet but this thread has piqued my interest perhaps on my next trip." A la prochaine fois!"