What is Cider?

Ciders just apples, isn’t it? Ask anyone in any British pub and they’ll tell you. Expanded a bit it’s the pressed juice of apples, fermented with wild yeasts into an alcoholic drink. Easy. 

Not quite. 

Woven into the simplicity of that description are a legion of variables that lead to the dizzying variety of ciders being boxed, bottled, canned and kegged today. 

So it’s made from apples? Sure, absolutely. But what variety or blend of varieties of apples? Just as, in its cousin drink, wine, you will find Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Nerello Mascalese, so in cider you will find the vividly intense Foxwhelp, the opulent, deep Yarlington Mill, the gloriously drinkable Discovery and (literally) thousands more besides. 

And those yeasts? Are they the varieties found on the skins of the apples or the very air of the cidery? Or are they a selected variety designed to work with the apples in a particular and understood way. 

Oh, and in what is this fermentation taking place? A plastic vat? A stainless steel tank? A wooden barrel? And if a barrel, then is it oak or chestnut or something else entirely? Was there anything in the barrel before you used it for cider? Wine, perhaps? Or whisky? Or brandy? Or is it a brand spanking new barrel to be used for the very first time? 

The decisions go on – are you making your cider sweet or dry? Are you making something fortified with brandy, like the pommeaux of Normandy? Are you making something still or sparkling? If sparkling, are you making your cider using the same method as champagne or prosecco or pet nat?

Are you adding anything to your cider? Blending apples with other fruit? Adding hops? Are you adding sugar, diluting your cider to make something lower alcohol? Are you pressing fresh apples to make your cider, or are you using apple concentrate? 

And how did we get here in the first place? 

All of these decisions and dozens more besides go into the making of everything currently labelled “cider” on shelves and bars around the world. Not only here in the UK, but in France and Spain where the traditions stretch back longer than our own, in Germany, Austria, the USA, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand – everywhere, in fact, where the apple tree can grow. 

The story begins in the Tien Shan mountains of modern-day Kazakhstan – the birthplace of the apple. Over centuries, initially through the droppings of animals, later through the opening of trade routes, apple trees spread across Europe and beyond. And once the secret of pressing apples for their juice was unlocked, the path to cider was opened. 

Cider is a drink and a story that is complex and fascinating and ancient. It has at turns been drunk from crystal glasses and horn cups, has inspired scientific papers and violent riots and was even responsible for the technique now used to make champagne. Yet for a very long time has languished in the shadow of beer and wine and spirits. 

But in the last twenty years or so, pioneering people have set themselves to putting cider in the sort of light that its long history and potential quality have always deserved. The sort of light that led to it being studied and treasured by men and women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a valid alternative to wine. Across the world knowledge is being shared, discussions are being held and pressed apples are being transformed into something magical. 

Cider is more thrilling now than it has been in living memory and there has never been a better time to discover it. A world of flavour is waiting, and it all stems from the world’s most humble fruit. We’re so excited to share it with you.