A drink with history, hard cider makes a comeback
WASHINGTON—“Last year, they had a great crop of Kingston Black,” home-brewer Rick Garvin says as he plucks purplish-red fruit from one of 3,000 semi-dwarf apple trees at the Distillery Lane Ciderworks in Jefferson, Va. “It makes a nice, balanced single- variety cider.”
Garvin, a McLean, Va., resident, meant hard cider—the alcoholic kind. In America, we have to use an adjective to distinguish it from sweet cider, which is fresh, unfiltered apple juice. But in England, where every 12th pint slung over the bar contains cider, the term always denotes strong drink.
Some of the best apples for making hard cider are not the kind you find in a supermarket. Rob Miller, who owns the orchard, says Kingston Black is a bittersharp, a variety rich in acid and tannin. You wouldn’t want to bake such apples into a pie; a bite of the fruit leaves a dry, woody sensation in the back of the throat. But the juice “makes a thick cider on the side of a sweet syrup; it ferments well,” he says.
During the 18th century, American adults imbibed an average of 34 gallons of hard cider a year, according to W. J. Rorabaugh’s book “The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition.” Cider consumption plummeted rapidly in the 19th century, giving way first to bourbon whiskey, then to lager beer and soft drinks. It didn’t help that cider’s popularity was strongest in the countryside, where Prohibitionist sentiments held sway.
After a century and a half as an anachronism, hard cider is staging a comeback. Since a Brewers United for Real Potables outing to his farm in September, Miller has had 25 to 30 other home-brewers drop in to buy the juice. (It’s also available in pasteurized form in half-gallon bottles at the South Mountain Creamery in nearby Middletown, Va.) Sales of commercial cider are up 14.4 percent so far this year, making it the fastest-growing segment in the alcoholic beverage industry, says industry analyst Bump Williams. Miller sells only fresh fruit and juice, but he intends to apply for a license that will allow him to market hard cider.
Dave Fredlund, district manager for Green Mountain Beverage in Middlebury, Vt., estimates that Americans consume 4 million cases of hard cider a year. That translates into about 290,000 barrels, the output of a large craft brewery. But that’s still a major step upward from the paltry 145,000 cases sold in 1990.
In 1991, the Joseph Cerniglia Winery (as Green Mountain was originally called) phased out its high-alcohol apple wine sold in Mason jars in favor of a lighter, more accessible beverage. Cerniglia decided to package his new Woodchuck brands in six-packs and kegs, and reduce the alcohol content to a more beerlike 5 percent by volume.
Woodchuck set the pattern for its imitators. E.&J. Gallo introduced its Hornsby’s brands in 1995, and several breweries followed suit, including Boston Beer Co. with its HardCore line and, more recently, Harpoon Brewing Co. with its Harpoon Cider.
Today, Green Mountain is the Anheuser- Busch of the U. S. cider industry, accounting for 52 percent of domestic sales, by Fredlund’s reckoning. Its Woodchuck ciders tend to be aromatic, rounded and fruity, dominated by the sweet, fragrant McIntosh apple. The 802 Dark and Dry (named after Vermont’s area code) has caramelized sugar added for extra body and color. Woodchuck Granny Smith is made entirely from the tart green apples of the same name. Green Mountain also markets pear and raspberry ciders, in which other fruit flavorings are added to an apple base.
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