Hard apple cider

The overall theme of this website is seasonal living, and it is harvest time in vineyards throughout the northern hemisphere. We can’t grow wine grapes in Sharon Springs (although there are excellent vineyards in the Finger Lakes, a few hours to the west), but we do have excellent apples and it’s not hard to turn the juice into very good hard cider.

If you’ve ever kept a gallon of pure, unpasteurized apple cider in the refrigerator for a week, chances are that after several days, the plastic jug started to swell a bit and the cider started to feel a bit prickly on the tongue. That’s because naturally occurring yeast (probably on the apple’s skin) is converting the sugar in the cider into alcohol — too little at this point to be noticed — and carbon dioxide. Pasteurization, of course, kills off any stray microbial life forms, so this will not happen with cider from the supermarket. In theory, if you were to let the cider go longer, all the sugar would be converted and you would be left with dry, hard cider. In reality, you would need a little more equipment, but not much. It’s much easier than making home brewed beer and many people in these parts make hard cider every fall. My own experiments with winemaking may have been failures, but I’ve made excellent cider. Chances are, looking back at my first blog entry here, that Judge Beekman drank a good bit of the stuff, probably made on the premises.

Hard cider (sometimes called by it’s French name, cidre, to differentiate it from the sweet juice) is quite dry, and has an alcohol content of about seven percent, not unlike a relatively strong beer. Also like beer, it is usually lightly fizzy, golden colored and slightly bitter, despite the apple flavor, which seems to be intensified once the sugar is gone. Cider can give one a new appreciation of what apple flavor really means.

I don’t drink hard cider all that often, and usually what I drink is homemade by friends of mine. But there are quite a few good ones on the market  Some cider, like beer, are sold in twelve ounce, crown cap bottles and can even be found on tap in pubs and bars. This appears to be an English tradition. French Cider is usually in larger wine bottles with a Champagne cork. I like both styles but prefer the French approach. It’s dryer and, therefore better with food.  I also find the apple flavor more intense. It may have something to do with the French preoccupation with place, their passion for determining which plot of land is best for which variety of fruit, and what are the best uses for the product. It goes well beyond grapes apples and applies to cheeses, chickens and even lentils.

Grapes and milk seem to be able to express the soil and climate that produced them with the greatest clarity and it’s no coincidence that wine and cheese have been the object of the most classification and specialization.  Wine and cheese can tell their life stories in a way that few other agricultural products can and I’ll get into that next week.

Apples may not be the subject of as much hair-splitting as grapes, but certain regions are better for them than others. The best French cider is from Normandy, where the climate is too cold for grapes but great for apples. It is also excellent dairy country, home to Camembert Pont l’Eveque, Livarot and other rich creamy cheeses and also some of the best butter in the world. Almost any French dish that is designated à la Normande will contain apples and probably cream.

Muscadet

This evening I am going to braise a pork loin with cabbage and apples (and onions, carrots, chicken stock, hard cider and herbs).  It won’t involve cream, so it’s not exactly à la Normande, but if I can find a ripe Camembert, I’ll serve it. We’ll drink a hard cider with dinner. The one I’ve found for tonight is called Duché de Longueville Muscadet de Dieppe. The name is a bit confusing, as it has nothing to do with Muscadet wine., but is the name of the kind of apple from which is it made. Duché de Longueville is the producer. I bought it for $5.99 which is reassuring in a week of financial crisis.

Our Nepenth columnist, Ross Wasserman has had a house in Sharon Springs since his great grandfather purchased a summer home in the village in the 1890’s. He owned and ran a restaurant in the region that won a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence every year of his proprietorship. He now runs the New York office of Benson Marketing Group, a public relations and marketing agency specializing in wine. (Full disclosure will be offered whenever a wine with which he has a professional connection is recommended.)