To quote Ned Flanders: “If it’s clear and yellow, you’ve got juice there fellow! If it’s tangy and brown, you’re in cider town!” Okly-dokely?
The definition I was given is close to one of the ones you got:
Cider comes from raw apples and may be raw or pasteurized, but juice is extracted from cooked apples, often as a byproduct of other processes such as applesauce.
Rightly or wrongly, that’s what I was told. As I recall, my source worked for Gerber at the plant that made all their applesauce (as well as other things in season). Which may have had something to do with the definition.
A link to the column in question.
I live 5 miles from one of the largest apple-producing areas in the state. It’s pretty much marketing. MacLir is sorta right. Juice can come from cooked, uncooked, concentrate or whatever. It’s a catch-all term. Cider tends to be fresh-pressed.
Well, I can only speak for here in the UK but there is a BIG difference between cider and apple juice.
Apple juice is, just that. Juice squeezed from apples. Cider is fermented to (sometimes) quite awe inspring levels of alcoholic goodness. As an example I recently went to the Bristol Cider Festival and, frankly, it was about three days before I felt right again. Damned good evening though…
The UK is much more enlightened about such things than we are here in the colonies. 
Legally, there is no difference in the US between juice and cider. If it’s alcoholic, it’s hard cider.
We’re talking three things:
- Apple cider. This is a muddy brown. It has a suspension of apple solids in it.
- Apple juice. In the US, this is a clear, amber color. It is filtered to remove the solids.
- Hard cider. Commercially, this is made from apple juice that’s been fermented. But cider will become “hard” over time as it ferments naturally. It can be vile or palatable depending on how the fermentation goes.
Cider can be pasteurized or not (in NY, pasteurization is required, but that’s a recent change). Usually it’s “flash pasteurized” to help keep the flavor intact. Juice is always pasteurized.
Yes, I want to warn USians coming to Europe: apple juice is pressed from the fruit and can be either natural = with solids or clear, but never fermented; cider (called cidre from the French word) is always fermented, but with little alcohol content (2,5 to 5%)
Apple wine (Applewoi) has higher content (5,5 to 7,5%) and Apple schnapps (Obstler) has really high (35 to 40%).
Because cidre is bubbly and sour and has low alcohol, it’s refreshing on a hot day.
Still, you need to check in which country you are - wikipedia says that British cider has 12% for example!
“And of course in Canada, the whole thing’s flip-flopped!”
Back in the late 1980s or so a baby food company got fined for selling colored water with sugar as “apple juice”.
I don’t know about you all, but to me, the difference is in the taste. If it’s been pasteurized, it tastes the same, regardless of color or cloudiness (to me at least). If it hasn’t been pasteurized it has a bit more tang to it, even if it hasn’t had much time to ferment. As a result, most of what I see advertised as cider is basically brown apple juice. It’s a shame, but there are only a few places I can go to get the real thing.
I live in NY so it’s all pasteurized, but there’s a distinct taste difference between transparent Apple Juice and the opaque Apple Cider. I don’t know why the juice companies can’t tell the difference, but I can.
Powers &8^]
I think that it is the unpasturasation that is the difference
Both juice and cider can be “filtered” or “unfiltered” The “cloudy stuff” is filtered just as much as the clear stuff. However before the clear stuff is filtered, the processor adds an enzyme to the juice/cider that congeals the stuff that makes the juice cloudy and makes it settles to the bottom.
A decade or two ago, all juice and cider was clear. Processors thought that the cloudy juice looked dirty and people wouldn’t buy it because apple juice is suppose to be a clear golden liquid. What happened is that there was a home juice press appliance fad that came and went. However, when people squeezed their own apple juice, it was cloudy. Hence, people started associating the cloudy juice with being “natural”.
Cider and Juice are merely marketing terms in the U.S. I had a friend who worked at Motts, and the same stuff coming out of the plant was labeled as both “juice” and “cider”. The difference simply had to do with marketing: Parents preferred to buy juice for their kids because cider sounds iffy – it could contain alcohol. Adults like buying cider because it sounds more natural (and maybe, they’re hoping, it is alcoholic).
Same stuff.
As mentioned, in the UK we drop the word ‘hard’, all cider is fermented from apples. We also have an alcoholic drink called perry that is fermented from pears instead of apples. The strength for both starts at around 5%ABV and goes up. The strongest I’ve personally had was around 11%.
Yup, that’s what I understand them to be, too. Apple juice is apple juice. Cider is an alcoholic drink.
I truly miss unpasteurized and UV pasteurized cider. It’s flavor was sublime. The slow ferentation would produce a tiny amount of alcohol and acetic acid in the late season product, giving cider it’s traditional kick. Unfortunately, due to E-coli, cider has been reduced to cloudy apple juice with many antimicrobial agents added. It’s literally unfermentable, even for the home brewer.
This is a treat which will be lost on future generations. Considering the current rules are primarily to prevent idiots from inadvertently killing their infants by feeding them unpasteurized cider, I can live with it.
So press your own. It ain’t rocket science. 
Even if you don’t want to make or buy a “real” cider press, a Victorio strainer or the like will do the job adequately, I’m sure. Put your kids on the crank - they’ll think it’s fun (for a while) and you’ll get some return on all that food and clothes you’ve been buying.
I believe that in the United States, “applejack” also refers to the alcoholic version.
Applejack is distilled. Hard cider isn’t.
This may be true in some region of the US, but it is completely false in the Northeast, where “Apple juice” and “cider” have been distinctly different in both appearance and taste at least since the 50s.
And this, too, has no resemblance to reality as I have known it for the last half century or so in Maine, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania.
If this is truly a regional difference, perhaps that explains the somewhat foozlier aspects of the original column.