Subject: Re: How was cider kept?

From: [email-masked] (David Herron)
Date: 1 Nov 1994 08:49:07 -0800

Peter Honig ([email-masked]) wrote:

: <[email-masked]> writes:
:  
: >If cider was the most drank beverage - how did the colonials keep it from
: >turnong to vinegar?

:  "Hard cider" was however popular before then
: and did not spoil as easily due to its alchohol content.

The word "cider" is a modernisation of the word "cyser" which refers
to a kind of mead made with apple juice.  Mead is wine made with
honey either by itself or with other spices/flavorings.  No grapes
unless you're making a mead variant called "melomel" (I think).

What we in America call "hard cider" is the real thing while
what we call "cider" is the derivation.

I understand that if you're in England/Scotland/Ireland and ask
for cider you'll get an alchoholic drink!

		David

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From: [email-masked] (david director friedman)
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 02:05:42 GMT

David Herron writes:

"The word "cider" is a modernisation of the word "cyser" which refers
to a kind of mead made with apple juice.  Mead is wine made with
honey either by itself or with other spices/flavorings.  No grapes
unless you're making a mead variant called "melomel" (I think)."

I do not believe you are correct about the source of "cider;" at
least, my Webster's 2nd edn gives the etymology as from the Old
French "cidre." I think cyser is simply another drink, made as you
describe. What is your reason for thinking that the one word comes
>from  the other?

The usual term for a drink fermented from honey and grapes is
"pyment." "Melomel" is from honey and fruit juice, so one could
consider a pyment a kind of melomel (grape being a fruit).

David Friedman

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From: [email-masked] (Nick Maclaren)
Date: 4 Nov 1994 10:46:19 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (David Herron) writes:
|> 
|> What we in America call "hard cider" is the real thing while
|> what we call "cider" is the derivation.
|> 
|> I understand that if you're in England/Scotland/Ireland and ask
|> for cider you'll get an alchoholic drink!

Ye gods and little fishes!  You mean that American practice is to
call apple juice (or something like that) cider?  This explains
what I thought to be total bullshit on this thread!

If you ask for cider ANYWHERE in Europe (including France, Spain
and the other cider-producing areas), you will get an alcoholic
drink.  You can often ask for a non-alcoholic version, but it is
not the default.

Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  [email-masked]
Tel.:  +44 223 334761    Fax:  +44 223 334679

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From: [email-masked] (Robin Carroll-Mann)
Date: 4 Nov 1994 23:59:39 GMT

>drink.  You can often ask for a non-alcoholic version, but it is

    I can only speak for terms used in the northeast U.S., but... yes,
the word "cider", used by itself, is a non-alcoholic beverage made by
pressing apples.  Unlike apple *juice*, which is clear and golden, and has (I
suppose) been strained, apple cider tends to be darker, heartier in taste,
and contains sediment.  Around here, apple cider is a seasonal phenomenon,
available primarily in the fall/early winter.

    What they call "cider" in Europe is known here as "hard cider" --
fermented cider, with about the same alcohol content as beer.  I know of at
least two brands of American-made hard cider which are available in my
region.  I'm actually rather fond of the stuff, and I can tell you that it
is something of specialty item around here, and is not available in every
liquor store.

    I hope this clears up some of the confusion.
 
>Tel.:  +44 223 334761    Fax:  +44 223 334679

Robin Carroll-Mann
SCA: Brighid ni Chiarain
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Nick Maclaren)
Date: 5 Nov 1994 16:41:23 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Robert Jaffe <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>David Herron ([email-masked]) wrote:
> 
>And in France, too, it's a mild, 2% alcohol, kind of drink.  

I would watch out, if I were you and ever in Normandy (or even
Britanny!)  While there IS 2% alcohol cider, 5% is more normal.

>Question:  Why isn't it made and sold in the U.S.A.?

I have several ideas, but no evidence!  One hint is that it is not
easy to make from sweet apples (i.e. eaters and most American
cookers).  But I don't know if this is relevant.

Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  [email-masked]
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679

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From: [email-masked] (Charlie Sorsby)
Date: 5 Nov 1994 20:25:09 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Robin Carroll-Mann) writes:
= 
=     What they call "cider" in Europe is known here as "hard cider" --
= fermented cider, with about the same alcohol content as beer.  I know of at
= least two brands of American-made hard cider which are available in my
= region.  I'm actually rather fond of the stuff, and I can tell you that it
= is something of specialty item around here, and is not available in every
= liquor store.

And isn't (or wasn't) there apple jack, which, as I recall was hard
cider frozen to permit removal of some of the water as ice, leaving
behind a smaller percentage of water and, so, a larger percentage
of alcohol?  Or is that an old wive's tale?

-- 
Best,

Charlie "Older than dirt" Sorsby				"I'm the NRA!"
	  [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Mark Diller)
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 22:06:42 GMT

Yes, cider in the US is like apple juice, only slightly more robust.
I recently fermented some cider, and got a rather pleasant apple
wine.  I had to age it forever, though.

Mark
-- 
Mark Diller - Univ. Chicago Divinity School - aka [email-masked]
              tauta de egeneto oudepote, esti de aei

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From: [email-masked] (allen lutins)
Date: 6 Nov 1994 21:56:12 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Charlie Sorsby <[email-masked]> wrote:
[...]
>of alcohol?  Or is that an old wive's tale?

...that is *no* tale!  ...i've had applejack in western Pennsylvania
(near the West Virginia border) and that is exactly how it was
made...and apparently a lot of homes in the area had the stuff...

							-allen
-- 
 "Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?  Are they not the ones
  who are dragging you into court?"              -- James 2:6 [NIV]
====================================================================
 allen `alley cat' lutins                    [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Robert G Sieber)
Date: 7 Nov 1994 10:50:51 -0800

As promised some weeks ago, here are my notes on cider.  My research 
suggests that fermented cider was common in the US through the 
prohibition era, when home manufacture was of the few loopholes for legal 
drinking.  The right of farmers in particular to make cider from their 
own apples was widely upheld as virtually sacred, and absolutely 
essential to protect.  One author, cited below, attributes the decline of 
cider to the rise of orange juice! propelled by commercial citrus 
interests in California and Florida.

NOTES ON CIDER

There are several works available on cider production in Britain in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly reviews of common 
production practices, all of which consistly take for granted that cider 
is fermented--if it is not fermented then it is not true cider.  The 
fermentation process is treated as an integral part of the making of 
cider.  Also it is commonly treated as an alternative beverage (a more 
wholesome one, being both more natural and more British) to 
beer/ale/porter or wine.  From this it seems reasonable to conjecture 
that the meaning of cider as fermented apple juice is also that generally 
understood in the colonies and the early U.S.

Furthermore, cider naturally begins to ferment almost immediately after 
pressing, due to the action of wild yeasts naturally present on the skins 
of the apples, which can only be killed with special bactericides.  
Cider, if kept cool, as in a cellar, would complete its fermentation (all 
the sugar converted to alcohol) within a few weeks, much sooner if not 
properly laid down.  Unless pasteurized, frozen, or treated with modern 
chemicals, cider could only be drunk unfermented within a few hours of 
pressing.  Having been consumed both commonly and year-round, it had to 
have been, almost always, fermented (about 5-9% alcohol by volume, unless 
pushed by the addition of extra sugar for further fermentation or 
fortified with distilled spirits).

Cider in the U.S.

	Orton, Vrest.  _The American Cider Book:  The Story of America's 
Natural Beverage._  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973.

?Late in his life, Ernest Hemingway, drinking British dry cider [about 
6-9% alcohol by volume], would reminisce about the cider mills he knew 
growing up in Michigan (pp. 3-4).

-1850s. CIDER.  Both apple-growing and cider-making peaked in the U.S. in 
the mid-nineteenth century, while the large majority of Americans still 
lived and worked on farms (Orton 1973:12).

-1859. CIDER.  In 1859, Henry Ward Beecher wrote about cider and 
varieties of apples for cider production.  Referring to cider, he wrote, 
". . . there is a pleasure in having a decorous name to a good fruit." 
{source not cited} (Orton 1973:14).

-1620. CIDER. The apples cultivated in the British American colonies were 
grown from imported seeds.  Small crab apples were found growing wild, 
but they were hard and very astringent, edible only after long cooking.  
By 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was planting apples trees.  As the 
early crop was not yet well-formed, their orchard tenders being unused to 
the conditions of their new home, most of the early crops were used for 
cider. 
	Cider was the common country beverage, readily and easily made on 
the farm from the farmer's own produce.  It was cheaper than beer, and 
easier to make at home, and it was consumed at home by the entire family 
(Orton 1973:15-16).

-1800. CIDER: CONSUMPTION PATTERNS. Cider was a vital supply to ships 
sailing from New England, was freely drunk at all sorts of public 
occasions, and at house and barn raisings.  A large cider press was 
considered an important asset on a farm offered for sale (Orton 1973:17).

-1930. CIDER. Until 1930, more cider, both sweet and hard combined, was 
made and drunk in the U.S. than any other fruit juice.  After this date, 
orange juice, pushed by entrepreneurs from Florida and California, 
overtook it (Orton 1973:21).

Another, more recent and probably more reliable, source indicates that 
home cider-making was less prevalent than has been thought.  She seems to 
overlook, however, the great expense of cider presses.  Anecdotal sources 
report that small growers took their own apples to a cider mill, where 
it was pressed, in exchange for a share of the cider.

AU Saracino-M-E.
CN George Washington University, Washington, DC.
TI Household production of alcoholic beverages in 
early-eighteenth-century Connecticut.
SO Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 46(3):244-252, 1985.
YR 1985.
LG EN.
PT Journal Article (03).
NT Address correspondence to Mary E. Saracino, 3817 Shafter Avenue, 
Oakland, CA 94609.
SH Drink habits - cultural (I101); History of alcohol use (I108); 
Alcoholic beverages (P100); Manufacture (P102); Types of alcoholic 
beverages (P104).
AB Home alcoholic beverage production in the households of early 
eighteenth century Connecticut is examined.  All probate inventories from 
Hartford, New London, and Fairfield counties for 1700, 1710, 1720, 1730, 
and 1740 (a total of 274 inventories) were examined with a checklist of 
items (e.g., hops, malt, cider presses, and stills) crucial to the 
production of alcoholic beverages during that period.  The presence of 
these beverages themselves was also noted.  Of the inventories read, 133 
(49%) suggested that beverage making took place in the household.  The 
three counties sampled showed surprisingly little deviation in the 
percentages of inventories suggesting alcohol production and in the 
preferences for specific types of drinks.  Of all inventories bearing 
references to alcohol production, beer brewing was indicated in 83% and 
cider in only 55% -- despite the traditional opinion of cider's 
predominance.  The independence of cider entries from the seasonal bias 
of the inventories was also demonstrated.  45 Ref.
KW Connecticut; Eighteenth century; History of alcohol; Household 
economy; Manufacture; Production; Types of alcoholic beverages.

--
Robert G Sieber (Bob)		"I got a mind like
[email-masked]	 a magnetic sieve!"
Long Beach, California

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From: [email-masked] (Robert Jaffe)
Date: 3 Nov 1994 01:36:28 GMT

Bob