Whoever coined the phrase ‘the humble apple’ must surely be unaware of the wild Malus Sieversii apple – ancestor of today’s domesticated Malus Domestica – and the journey it made from the foothills of central Asia’s Tien Shan Mountains along the Silk Road to fruit bowls the world over. It’s spawned a multi-billion pound global apple and cider trade in doing so, and when you consider that without English cider-makers there would be no sparkling wine business (more of that later), then the rather pejorative reference to the apple’s lowly status is amiss.
Cider is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting apple juice. It comes in a variety of iterations – still, naturally sparkling, bottle-fermented, methode champenoise, carbonated, dry, medium, sweet, ice cider, cider brandy, acidic, tannic, wild yeast fermentation. It can be made from dessert and eating apples, or bold and tannic cider apples.
Britons are the biggest consumers of cider per capita and fifty-six percent of apples grown in the UK go to make cider. At its best, cider is made of 100% freshly pressed apple juice, fermented slowly for months and then aged, often in oak barrels, for months (if not years). At its worst – well, that is the problem. Cider has negative connotations for many people – teenage hangovers, street drinkers on benches. There are poor quality iterations of all alcoholic drinks but people do not denigrate the entire category of other libations the way they often do with cider.