This article was extremly confusing for me as a European, as cider is here only hard cider - fermented stuff.
In Sweden there’s a third cathegory called “cider” (which has been exported to some countries, for example the UK). It’s an apple based carbonated and sweetned soda, sometimes with alcohol added. Kopparbergs Brewery - Wikipedia
There’s an ongoing debate of what the difference between (hard) cider and apple wine is. The consensus runs along the line that apple wine is always non-fizzy and with a higher alcohol and remaining sugar content.
At first I thought that this was a silly question. Then as I looked it up I realised that in America cider is non-alcoholic! In the rest of the world, apple juice is a pleasant sweet juice you can give to children and cider can knock you over. Scrumpy cider can be up to 10% alcohol but normally cider is equivalent to beer.
There you are. In America there is a definition problem, elsewhere it’s VERY different.
Another (muddled) data point: I’m looking at the jug of “Trader Joe’s Apple Cider” I just bought. The ingredients listing says “fresh pressed apple juice.”
Hogwash. A decade or two ago was 1990-2000. I’ve made cider since the 70’s. Been drinking it since the 50’s. It’s been made in the US for oh, over 200 years. Cider is the pressed juice of fresh apples. My press is in the basement. Very few people own their own cider presses, and if there was a fad for it, it was back in the 70’s when we got ours. The juice that comes from it is brown and wonderful. The unpasteurized stuff tastes the best, but either type tastes much better than apple juice, which is light gold and filtered and pasteurized until it is tasteless. Cider is generally only sold in the fall through the winter. Apple juice you can get any time. And the cider we used to buy from commercial presses was also brown and cloudy…it wasn’t just home presses that made it that way, that’s the way it comes! Cider doesn’t sound iffy to anyone who knows anything about apple juice. And if you are American, you don’t first think alcohol when you think cider. Adults like buying it because it tastes good. If they are hoping it is alcoholic, they must not be wondering why no one cards you when you are buying it and why every children’s Halloween party seems to feature cider.
Why don’t the US just change it so it makes sense:
Apple Juice from concentrate (the clear stuff)
Apple Juice from real apples only (the brown, cloudy good stuff)
Cider - fermented apple juice that appeals to underage drinkers
Get in line America - you’ve been like the unruly, emo offspring for 234 years and it’s getting boring
Heh. We’ve been the USA for 234 years specifically for the right to differ from Mama Britain, so forgive us if we don’t throw that over right now.
Hellfire, we can’t even come to a consensus within our nation. Why on Earth would we take anyone else’s word for it?
Yeah. 'round here, it’s “juice” (clear, sweet, filtered, often from concentrate); “cider” (sweet or tartish, unfiltered, brown); and “hard cider” (the latter, given the loving attention of the appropriate fermenting yeasts. Similar, taste-and-texture-wise, but somewhat fizzy. And not the kind of thing you can knock back by the quart unless you have someplace to pour yourself into afterwards.)
You can add western PA to your list and complete the state. My grandfather (a farmer in western PA) made cider that was great, and what we bought in eastern PA was the clearly same substance.
I was one disappointed puppy when I moved out to CO and tried some of what Mott’s calls cider. Now, my kids get confused because I talk about “real cider” vs what is available here.
Okay, so what is cider vinegar? You take apples and press them and then…?
If I’m not mistaken (and I probably am), cider that goes bad either ferments (turns hard) or turns vinegary and undrinkable.
You let apple juice ferment into alcoholic apple wine (by adding yeast), then you add vinegar bacteria that transform the alcohol into vingear acid.
There was a movement in the 80s, with lots of books, about the health benefits of apple vinegar (compared to normal vinegar, that’s made from plain burnt alcohol). As usual with wonder cures, a grain of truth was wildly overblown.
The application was either half a spoon of apple vinegar into half a glass of water, drunk in the morning to balance the acids or something; or applying vinegar topically. For example, bathing your feet in water with a dash of vinegar lowers the special odour.
And it does taste better than plain vinegar in cooking / dressings.
I’ll hazard a guess that the “Washington state outfit” mentioned in the article is TreeTop. I couldn’t find anything on the site about the difference between juice and cider, though.
I presume even the concentrate is also made from “real” apples
Me, I wants to try some scumble. (It’s “mostly” apples…)
