Wishlist #21; More Artisinal Cider and Perry
The mention of cider evokes various images. Industrial grot, laced with additives, necked by teenagers. Horse-piss scrumpy, twigs floating in it, stripping enamel from your teeth.
So here's a positive image - artisanal producers of quality cider and perry. I love how producers such as West County in the US take pride in being artisans; "an enterprise small enough so that the farmer or craftsman is the guiding and working force behind what is grown and made". I love the passion for quality and standards shown by the likes of Tom Oliver, the force behind the Guild Of Craft Cider and Perry Producer's Charter.
I love good cider and perry. I love a product that's made with care and passion, that's taken time to mature, skill to blend. I'm glad that I can't walk into a supermarket and buy stuff from Olivers/Burrow Hill/Whin Hill/Gwatkins. I want to search it out and treasure it, I want it to be made only in small batches, I want it to be positioned as a premium product and I want producers and consumers to take pride in it.
Un-mucked-about-with cider and perry could be the UK's finest contribution to the world's premium quality alcoholic products. The quiet revolution is underway; perhaps it's time to cherish it a little more.
So here's a positive image - artisanal producers of quality cider and perry. I love how producers such as West County in the US take pride in being artisans; "an enterprise small enough so that the farmer or craftsman is the guiding and working force behind what is grown and made". I love the passion for quality and standards shown by the likes of Tom Oliver, the force behind the Guild Of Craft Cider and Perry Producer's Charter.
I love good cider and perry. I love a product that's made with care and passion, that's taken time to mature, skill to blend. I'm glad that I can't walk into a supermarket and buy stuff from Olivers/Burrow Hill/Whin Hill/Gwatkins. I want to search it out and treasure it, I want it to be made only in small batches, I want it to be positioned as a premium product and I want producers and consumers to take pride in it.
Un-mucked-about-with cider and perry could be the UK's finest contribution to the world's premium quality alcoholic products. The quiet revolution is underway; perhaps it's time to cherish it a little more.
There is some lovely stuff about - I was working at Peterborough Beer Festival and we had Whin Hill perry (lovely rich drink, full of flavour), Hecks Blakeney Red perry and Port Wine of Glastonbury cider, Biddendens from Kent (superb!!), Double Vision (a few miles up the road from Biddendens)... just the highlights!
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty with pubs selling cider is that they're probably going to sell very little of it. And ninety per cent of the time that's to people who don't know much about it and are only buying a pint of Grots Laphroaig-cask Dabinett because there's no Magners left. So they only have one cider, and even those pubs that have a real cider usually play fairly safe with a 6 percenter that's reliable and medium sweet.
That said some pubs are excellent. Here in Norfolk we've got the Mariners, in Yarmouth, which actually has a cider bar, and the Cider Shed in Norwich usually has three ciders on - Burnards Rum Cask was recently in fantastic form, and I spent a very happy night encouraging a friend of mine to expand his acquaintance with real cider!