The Taste of Britain. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
USUALLY CLARIFIED. FERMENTED UNTIL DRY, WEST-COUNTRY CIDER IS ROBUST AND ASTRINGENT WITH PERFUMED APPLE OVERTONES. TYPICALLY 6 PER CENT ALCOHOL BY VOLUME.
HISTORY:
Although it must remain uncertain, it does appear that the Anglo-Saxon word beor refers to an alcoholic apple-based beverage. In Norman-French dialect, the word bère for cider survives to this day. Whether cider existed in early England or not, it is thought the art was stimulated by contacts with Normandy after the Conquest, and that cider-making was at first strongest in the South-Eastern counties of Sussex and Kent (Davies, 1993). But there are also many early references to cider in the West Country, including from the 1100s in Gloucestershire and the 1200s in Devon.
Cider from western Britain is distinguished by the use of apples specifically grown for cider-making. This practice has been current for at least 400 years. During the seventeenth century cider became a gentleman’s drink, equated with wine. In Herefordshire, much attention was paid to cider apples and methods. Advances at this time included greater selection of apples, refinement of storage and crushing techniques, and the invention of glass bottles strong enough to withstand a secondary fermentation. Celia Fiennes, travelling through Britain in the late seventeenth century, noted the good quality of Hereford cider.
In the eighteenth century cider sank on the social scale: there was increased competition from imported wine; middlemen sold inferior weak brews; and an epidemic of lead poisoning attracted opprobrium (French, 1982). Competition from wine may have been the most influential and long-lasting cause of cider’s drop in standing. Cider became a drink associated with the labouring poor; the quality was uneven and the flavour sharp. The juice was mixed with water, giving ‘ciderkin’ with an alcohol content comparable to that of small beer, a servants’ drink. It was this, not the fine ciders of the seventeenth century, that survived. In the late nineteenth century, there was renewed interest. Businesses that are still important today were established. Cider apples were classified according to acidity and tannin content into sweet, bittersweet, and bittersharp. Hereford and Worcester were known for cider made from bittersharps, Devon was known for sweet ciders and Somerset for ciders made from bitter-sweets (Morgan, 1993). Some of the larger cider-makers established their own orchards.
Advances in knowledge of fermentation, plus expanding urban markets, benefited small factory-based cider-makers but farm production diminished after 1930. English cider generally developed into a consistent, uniform product in which alcoholic strength was considered important (although western cider is generally less strong than that made on the eastern side of the country) and the process was standardized with added yeast cultures.
Since the 1970s, distinct trends have emerged: new planting of orchards of cider apples to better supply the industry; a renewed interest in on-farm cider-making and methods of production. For instance, ciders from single varieties such as Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Dabinett, Sweet Coppin and Brown’s Apple are now available.
Scrumpy is a name colloquially applied to farmhouse ciders which have been produced by traditional methods, but it has no fixed definition and is frowned upon by cider-lovers.Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire ciders have Protected Designations of Origin (PDO).
TECHNIQUE:
Ciders vary between makers and harvests, as do wines. Methods of production are at heart identical; it is variations in soils, micro-climate and fruit varieties which most affect the flavour. As yet, little systematic attempt to classify these has been made in respect of cider, and the necessary vocabulary is underdeveloped in English.
The hallowed routine followed for making farmhouse cider began with the harvest. The apples were either allowed to fall naturally or were shaken off the tree with a long pole; then they were taken into an apple loft and allowed to mellow. The stored apples of different varieties were blended. They were crushed in a horse-driven stone wheel-mill or, at the end of the nineteenth century, in a powered rotary press. Sometimes the crushed apple pulp (pomace) was left to stand to allow flavour to develop. It would then be pressed. It was placed in 4-6cm layers on hairs, or thick horsehair cloths which were folded over to envelop the pulp, and then built up into a cheese consisting of about 10 filled cloths. Pressure was applied from above by screwing a plate down on to the cheese. In Devon and Dorset, barley straw was used in place of the hairs, but this is no longer practised. As the juice flowed from the press, it was poured into barrels, loosely stoppered, and left to work under the action of naturally present yeasts. Once fermentation had ceased, the cider was racked off the spent yeast.
Modern production follows the same sequence but with refinements. The fruit may be dislodged and harvested mechanically. It is blended, picked over and cleaned before mechanical crushing. Hydraulically operated presses, with layers of fruit packed in polypropylene cloths, similar to the old-fashioned screw presses, are used to extract juice by small producers; big horizontal or continuous presses are used for factory operations. The juice may be sterilized with sulphur dioxide and yeast cultures added. Other additions are sugar if the year has been poor, and water by some makers. Fermentation takes place in large vats. The result is generally still, strong and dry. If sweet is required it is usually obtained by adding sugar. Royal cider, where fermentation is stopped by the addition of strong alcohol - which will give a sweeter finish - is not pursued as it used to be in the classic period. Some cider apples have sufficiently well-balanced acid and tannin to produce good cider without further blending. A few makers offer cider produced from single varieties. Otherwise, the apples may be blended before milling or after fermentation. Large companies have turned cider-making into a year-round activity by holding part of the year’s apple juice in a concentrated form until required; they may also use concentrated apple juice from abroad.
REGION OF PRODUCTION:
WEST AND SOUTH WEST ENGLAND.
Plymouth Gin
DESCRIPTION:
PLYMOUTH GIN IS COLOURLESS AND TRANSPARENT. ITS FLAVOUR IS AROMATIC WITH CITRUS AND CORIANDER OVERTONES. Two STRENGTHS ARE AVAILABLE: 37 AND 57 PER CENT ALCOHOL BY VOLUME.
HISTORY:
Gin has been distilled in Plymouth since at least the eighteenth century. Coates, the only company now allowed to use the name Plymouth Gin, began production in 1793 in the building which still houses the distillery. It has continued with little interruption. The 57 per cent spirit was made only for the Royal Navy but a quantity was released to celebrate the bicentenary of the company’s foundation. Coates is now marketed by Hiram Walker Agencies, a subsidiary of Allied Lyons.
TECHNIQUE:
A neutral grain alcohol is distilled through a rectifying still to remove odours. This yields a very pure spirit which is 95 per cent alcohol; to this are added the ‘botanicals’: juniper, coriander seed, orange and lemon peel, angelica, orris root and cardamom. Coates’s formula lays greater emphasis on the roots (angelica and orris) than other gins, giving it a distinctive aroma. The mixture is distilled once more in a pot still, checked in a spirit safe, and bottled.
REGION OF PRODUCTION:
SOUTH WEST ENGLAND.
Shrub
DESCRIPTION:
THIS IS PALE GOLD IN COLOUR; ITS TASTE IS SWEET, WITH CITRUS AND CARAMEL NOTES. IT IS 5.3 PER CENT ALCOHOL BY VOLUME.
HISTORY:
The word shrub derives from the Arabic root sharab, meaning a sweetened drink. The word and various drinks and confections associated with it are discussed in detail by Alan Davidson (1993). Since the mid-eighteenth century it has been applied to a sweetened drink of rum and oranges, lemons or other acid fruit such as currants. Athough it was clearly old-fashioned by the late 1800s, it was well enough known for Law’s Grocer’s