Cider...generous, strong, sufficiently heady...excites and cleanses the stomach, strengthens the digestion and infallibly frees the kidney and bladder from breeding the gravel stone... John Evelyn, Pomona from Silva, Royal Society 1664

    

Chuck Shelton uses an antique press to develop a unique cider blend.  

As the air turns crisply to autumn, little evokes the distilled warmth and sweetness of the fading summer like cider freshly pressed from the heavy sun soaked apples that droop from the trees. There are three natural intoxicating beverages as old as man: wine, beer and cider. The first two remain commonplace in our gastronomic consciousness, but cider, once a staple production of virtually every farm household in America, and indeed in all temperate climes, has all but disappeared from our food chain.

There are logical reasons for this--farming is no longer the livelihood of practically every American. Once what one ate was what one grew, and until the last century, most Americans lived on farms, grew their own food and orchards were commonplace.

The most important use of apples was Cider which was valued not so much for drinking fresh from the press, but for fermenting into a wholesome beverage that could be stored and drunk year-round, providing nutrients generally lacking from our diets before refrigeration and mass transit filled the cornucopia of our markets. In colonial America, fermented cider was the drink of choice. “As to the Drink chiefly used in this colony, it is generally Cyder, every planter having an orchard, and they make from 1000 to 5 or 6000 [gallons] according to their land and Fortune…” [John Joyce, 1785].

John Adams attributed his health and long life to a tankard of cider before breakfast. “From the founding of Jamestown to the time of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, on down to that of Robert E. Lee, every plantation owner made cider, drank cider, and bragged about his cider.” [A History of Horticulture in America to 1860, by U.P. Hedrick, 1861]

Thomas Jefferson was famous for the champagne-like cider he created from the Virginia Hewe's Crab apple. As he once remarked, “Malt liquors & cider are my table drinks" [Thomas Jefferson, 1819]. He grew many varieties of apples at Monticello and experimented with different blends in his cider. Albemarle CiderWorks has been inspired to protect several of the antique varieties of apple that Jefferson grew.

Crafting cider was a skill and an art highly prized by our farming ancestors. As William Coxe observed in his 1817 treatise on apples, "Cider is unquestionably the most difficult branch of the business of an Orchardist and that on which his success must chiefly depend...It involves some principles of chymical science, not easily comprehended or explained by men of common education, yet necessary to be known to every cultivator of orchards, who aims at any degree of perfection in the selection of his fruits, or the management of his liquor."

Hundreds of variables are important in cidermaking. The quality of cider varies almost infinitely with the character of the fruit and the care and technique used in its production. Coxe reminded his readers that the properties of a cider and table apple are very different, although some apples combine both characteristics. Ciderists proud of their product selected their fruit varieties carefully, searching out the desired elements of acidity, astringency, tannin, aroma and sweetness to produce the desired result. Cider was used not only as a staple for the table, but for barter and income. Literally thousands of apple varieties emerged from the seedling apple orchards that early Americans planted for cider. Varieties such as Winesap, Grimes Golden, Harrison, Graniwinkle, Albemarle or Newtown Pippin, Hewes Crab and hundreds of others were cherished for the quality they contributed to the blend.

The Albemarle Pippin, used in one of our cider varieties, gained notoriety with Queen Victoria, when it was introduced to her by Sally Coles Stevenson in 1838. In a letter to her family in February of that year, she remarked:

...Never did a barrel of apples obtain so much reputation for our country. They were eaten & praised by Royal lips, and swallowed by many aristocratic throats. Mr. Stevenson proposed sending two dozen to the Queen, accordingly they were put into a beautiful basket he had given me, and one of the maids of Honour presented them. In a day or two I received through the Countess of Durham the royal acknowledgement and the assurance of their having been much admired--& dining with Lord Durham soon after, he told me my apples had created a great sensation at the Palace, that it had been feared they would have been the death of the Premier, Lord Melborne, who after the Queen retired, had actually eaten two of immense size, & that all who had seen him perpetrate the rash act had considered him as a dead man but lo! he lived unharmed. I said so much for their being Virginia apples. [Edward Boykin, Victoria, Albert, and Mrs. Stevenson. Rinehart & Company, Inc., New York, 1957.]

Henry David Thoreau's essay Wild Apples documents the qualities of small crab apples for cider blending. Thoreau cited the British horticulturalist John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843) on the subject of cider:

No wonder that these small and high-colored apples are thought to make the best cider. Loudon quotes from the Herefordshire Report that "Apples of a small size are always, if equal in quality, to be preferred to those of a larger size, in order that the rind and kernel may bear the greatest proportion to the pulp".... [ From Wild Fruits 1859 by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)]

What passes for cider in today's market is usually only a faint caricature of the Cider that Coxe describes and our ancestors once knew. The wealth of varieties that provided the character of these brews is virtually unavailable to the aspiring ciderist today. Commercial orchards are dominated by the few usually bland and sweet dessert apples that populate the mass market (Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and now Fuji, Gala, etc.) Our national obsession with antiseptic food sources has made natural fresh cider almost extinct. One hopes that consumers might show a real interest in robust, natural, sweet cider.

If ever a food needed defenders, this is it. It is a tradition that has been driven underground and made disreputable by top-down, ignorant government regulations. Like the controversy over raw milk cheese -- forced pasteurization and the ruination, not only of a traditional product, but of the farmers and orchardists who make it -- many of whom have been forced out of business. Natural cider production is a concern for food connoisseurs and those interested in preserving our cultural culinary heritage. Finding artisans interested in producing quality ciders, hard or sweet, is a considerable challenge for most of us, but that endeavor is rewarding for those of us who would like to remember this sip from our past and preserve it for our future.

Stay me with flagons; comfort me with apples. The Song of Solomon II.5