Cider

[yvonne johnson]

My favorite cider is Magners Vintage Irish Cider. This non-cloudy cider with a red-ish tinge has a very clean taste, is slightly carbonated, and is a little sour. And only 125 calories per bottle. Available in New York at Garden of Eden (14 Street branch) where it’s under the deli counter.

http://www.magnerscider.com/default1.asp

Next on my list is Cider Jack Hard Cider. It’s a tad sweeter than Magners. (Supermarkets like D’Agostino carry it.)

http://www.ciderjack.com/

Interestingly the two are made by Bulmers.  I believe in UK the Magners equivalent is labeled “Bulmers”

Forget Woodpecker. Yet Bulmers makes this too. Speak about hogging the entire market.

[Jason Perlow]

Magners is good -- theres another one I am drinking called "K cider" that comes in small bottles that is very good and I've also been drinking some of the Woodchuck as well.

[yvonne johnson]

Thanks for the tips, Jason.  I've not tried either. But guess what? Woodchuck is also owned by Bulmers!

http://www.woodchuck.com/about_us.html

I'll look out for K Cider too. I looked it up on the web but I wouldn't recommend their site. So slow.

[Simon Majumdar]

If you get chance over there try and find a bottle of Westin's organic Cider.  Quite strong but perfect for a hot summer's day

[Bux]

Let me recommend the cidre from Manoir de Kinkiz in Quimper, Brittany. It carries the French Appellation Cornouaille Controlee designation and comes corked like champagne. It's as good a French hard cider (6% alcohol) as I've run across in the US. You're not likely to find it in supermarkets. It's  imported by Louis/Dressner whose wines from odd corners of France have also been reliable. So far I've only seen it in Astor in Manhattan. As with my recommendation for rum, there's a bit of chauvinism in this as well perhaps. My daughter married into a Breton family.

[Jason Perlow]

One of the best things you can do with a Cidre Bouche (norman cider) or any cider really is to cook mussels in their shells with olive oil, shallots and parsley, and then add cider, and simmer.

Serve a generous portion of this to each guest, sop this up with some french or italian bread.. fantastic.

[Toby]

I drank a cider from Vermont, called Original Sin (I think) at Fleur de Sel. Anyone heard of it, know where to buy it in NY?

[joler]

I have a bottle of Farnham Hill Extra Dry - here is the description from their website...

Farnum Hill Extra-Dry:

Pale gold, bubbly, seriously dry. Richly aromatic, suggesting myriad fruits of the earth, and the earth itself, with a complex, palate-cleansing balance of fruitiness, astringency, and acid. Alcohol content 7.5% by volume. Full cork closure, 750 ml. bottle. Delicious with many foods, much as the driest champagne can be.

My question, oh e-gulleters, any ideas for a vegetarian entree that would pair well with this beverage?

[nightscotsman]

Pork.

[col klink]

I'm surprised that nobody in the States has mentioned Woodchuck, they make a Granny Smith that in my circle is known as "Shamus crack" after my good buddy Shamus. It's dry (for an American cider), crisp and tart without too much sweetness. It's the only cider I drink on a regular basis and is also available to most of the country.

Nightscotsman, pork does indeed go well with Granny.

[Pan]

I find beer too bitter in general, so cider is one of my favorite bar drinks and the thing I most commonly get when not having a mixed drink in a bar. I like the granny smith varietal very much.

It's interesting to me that cider can range from very apple-y or even excessively sweet (fortified with lots of sugar) to really dry, like a dry wine. One time, I got some cider from a farm in Vermont that I got to by going up a dirt road somewhere, and it turned out to be very dry and not apple-y. It was good for what it was trying to be, but I prefer to taste the apple when I drink cider.

[elyse]

I'm surprised that nobody in the States has mentioned Woodchuck, they make a Granny Smith that in my circle is known as "Shamus crack" after my good buddy Shamus. It's dry (for an American cider), crisp and tart without too much sweetness. It's the only cider I drink on a regular basis and is also available to most of the country.

Nightscotsman, pork does indeed go well with Granny.

I love Woodchuck. Green, yellow, and red. They can also be a very good value at 'thrifty' beverage places.

Sorry to say, yvonne, I don't like Magner's at all. There's something in it that makes me wince.

[Katherine]

I like Woodpecker cider. I find now that most American ciders (even those that didn't previously) have a strong sulfite taste from the preservatives they use.

In Spain I tried Asturian cider, but found it too salty.

[Aurora]

I find Woodpecker to be a little sweeter than I like. My favorites are Strongbow and Scrumpy Jack. They are both effervescent and a bit more on the dry side.

[KNorthrup]

Can you buy Strongbow in bottles in the midwest? It's a good one, but I only see it on tap here (Portland OR). In general, cider has always been my alcohol of choice. White Oak is a well-done very dry type. Some people I've served it to assumed it was beer. I tried the Granny Smith Woodchuck once and hated it. That was several years back. It was metallic, that's all I remember. There are a lot of local producers making it now but they tend to be in champagne type bottles rather than beer so it's much more of a commitment to try them. Most of the non-apple types are too sweet for me but I miss the apple-cranberry. Think it was Hard Core but it may have been Cider Jack. Interesting to see that Bulmer's owns so many US varieties. I was in Ireland for two weeks last May (inadvertently during the World Cup. yikes.) and that's what the pubs usually carried.

Joler - what did you end up making? I tried to think of a vegetarian suggestion but pork kept creeping in.

[nightscotsman]

Of the locally available brands, I like Spire. I know it's a bit on the sweet side, but at least it has a natural apple flavor to it. I don't really care for the super-dry varieties. They tend to taste too much like beer to me, and I hate the taste of beer. Why drink cider if you want something that tastes like beer?

My current favorite, however is the Okanagan brand "Crisp Apple" cider that I got in Vancouver. Tastes just like a crisp, fresh, tart apple with just enough sweetness to keep it from tasting like a beer.

[pixelchef]

I adore Strongbow. In fact, I got violently drunk from Strongbow this weekend. :) Ahh, the memories.

[Kent Wang]

Any drinks with cider?

There's also the non-alcoholic, non-sparkling cider you can buy the supermarket by the gallon. To make mulled cider, do you just add spices and alcohol, presumably rum?

There's a brand of cider here that already has spices in it, so I just added some dark rum and heated it up. Tastes pretty good. It could probably use some more spices though, more cinnamon, nutmeg, maybe some bitters too.

[eje]

Well, there's the "Stone Fence" which is basically just a "Cider Bomb".

That is, Hard Cider with a shot of Applejack.

There's also the Devonia, which is a similar drink. Cider with a shot of gin and a dash of orange bitters. Though recipes I have suggest adding ice "shaking lightly". They are silent on whether to strain into a cocktail glass. I will also add the Devonia is particularly nice with an Oude-style Genever gin, rather than a dry gin.

[lancastermike]

I can get freshly pressed non-pastuerized apple cider at my local farmers market. This is wonderful stuff on it's own. However, I love to drink it with 2 oz of so of Lairds Applejack and a couple dashes of bitters.

I have used both the Lairds bonded and the regular blended Applejack. In this application the blended is ok, but the bonded is still better.

I have seen this called a Miniuteman.

[Yojimbo]

Bourbon and fresh apple cider was popular with some folks for tailgating, but being a rye guy myself I use Old Overholt, a healthy dose of bitters and a dash of Maraschino to up the funkiness of a good cider.

I'd try it warmed, but I might never leave the house except to buy more ingredients.

Yoimbo

[Ktepi]

Fresh cider is great in place of water in hot buttered rum.

At the moment I'm replenishing my supply of the spice liqueur I use -- half vodka, half whiskey, lots of spices, two weeks -- in the winter. Just a little bit in warm cider if you don't want a strong drink, or a little bit plus a shot of bourbon if you do.

Wasmund's single-malt American whiskey is also very good in warm cider -- at least the last bottle I had was, I know that whiskey varies a bit from batch to batch.

[Mattmvb]

Interestingly the two are made by Bulmers.  I believe in UK the Magners equivalent is labeled “Bulmers” <p>Forget Woodpecker. Yet Bulmers makes this too. Speak about hogging the entire market.

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There's a bit of (understandable) confusion regarding Bulmers.

There are actually two cider producing companies that go by the name of Bulmers, apparently because of a long past joint venture (1930's I think) - H.P. Bulmers and Irish Bulmers.

Magners is produced by Irish Bulmers, and is the export version of Bulmers original as sold in Ireland - they had to change the name because H.P. Bulmers own the rights to it in the rest of the world.

H.P. Bulmers produce over 65% of the Cider sold in the UK, their major brands are Strongbow, Woodpecker, Scrumpy Jack and Bulmers Original. They introduced their own Bulmers Original to compete with Magners which had started to get a very strong hold on the younger (20-35) part of the UK market.

To sumamarise, if you are drinking Bulmers in Ireland it is the same as Magners, anywhere else and it's a product created directly to compete with Magners.

I hope that makes sense!

Cheers,

Matt