99 Fun Facts About Cider

Which region has the world's highest per-capita cider consumption?

The British Isles: the United Kingdom has the world's highest per-capita cider consumption and is home to the largest cider-producing companies, with the West Country its historic heartland.

The word 'cider' reached English through the Greek and Latin Bibles from which language's word for strong drink?

Hebrew: the Greek and Latin Bibles borrowed shekar, a word for any strong drink, and only later did 'cider' narrow in English to mean the fermented juice of apples.

Which Roman's 55 BC invasion of Britain is traditionally credited as the first record of cider?

Julius Caesar led the 55 BC expedition to Britain; the traditional account has his legions finding Celts fermenting crab apples there, the story usually told as the starting point of cider history.

Under UK law, cider must contain at least what percentage of apple juice?

35%: HMRC's definition for duty purposes requires cider to contain at least 35 per cent apple juice, whereas CAMRA's 'real cider' standard demands 90 per cent fresh juice.

What is the name for the dry apple pulp left after pressing, traditionally fed to farm animals?

Pomace is the pressed-out pulp of skins, flesh and pips; steeped in water and pressed again, it gave ciderkin, a weak cider traditionally drunk by children.

What advantage does fermenting cider at a cool 4-16°C give?

Slower fermentation and less loss of aroma: a temperature too low for most fermentations suits cider, so makers have no need to keep it warm.

What is 'racking' in cider making?

Racking means siphoning the liquor off the yeast into a clean vat, leaving the spent lees behind; the vats are then filled to the brim to keep out the acetic bacteria that would turn cider to vinegar.

Cider apples are classed by their tannin and by their level of which acid, named after the Latin for apple?

Malic: researchers at Long Ashton, near Bristol, drew up the scheme in the early 1900s, and cider makers still sort their fruit by it.

Dabinett belongs to which class of cider apples, high in tannin but low in acid?

Bittersweets such as Dabinett pair a bitter tannic edge with low acid, so cider makers usually blend them with sharper apples to balance the drink.

West Country cloudy, unfiltered cider is called scrumpy, usually traced to a dialect word 'scrump' meaning what?

A small or withered apple: that is the usual derivation, and the rough cider itself was once part of a West Country farm labourer's pay, handed out as a daily allowance.

Devon colic, which plagued cider drinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries, was a form of what?

Lead poisoning: physician George Baker showed in the 1760s that the colic came from lead in cider presses and vessels, and it all but vanished from Devon once the lead was removed.

Percy Bulmer made his first cider in 1887, aged 20, using apples from the orchard of what?

His father's rectory: Percy's father was rector of Credenhill, and Percy is said to have gone into drink on his mother's advice that food and drink never go out of fashion.

Bulmers is based in which English city?

Hereford: Bulmers has made cider in the city since the 1880s and has held a Royal Warrant since 1911, though the firm the family built is now owned by the Dutch brewer Heineken.

Strongbow, launched by Bulmers in 1960, is named after which figure?

A Norman knight, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, was nicknamed Strongbow; in 1170 he sailed to join the invasion of Ireland in defiance of a royal messenger sent to forbid it.

By 1970 Strongbow was Bulmers' second-best-selling cider behind which stablemate?

Woodpecker, Bulmers' sweet flagship cider, outsold the drier Strongbow through the 1960s before Strongbow overtook it to become Britain's best-selling cider.

The Irish cider sold at home as Bulmers is sold in every other market under which name?

Magners: William Magner began making cider in Clonmel in 1935, and the export brand took his name because the Bulmers trademark belongs to H.P. Bulmer outside Ireland; serving it over ice is its marketing hallmark.

Which apple soft drink did the cider maker Bulmers launch in Ireland in 1955?

Cidona came from the Irish cider maker Bulmers, part of C&C, and has been sold in Ireland since 1955; it moved to Britvic when C&C sold its soft drinks business in 2007.

Thatchers, a family firm making cider at Myrtle Farm in Sandford since 1904, is based in which English county?

Somerset: William Thatcher began making cider at Myrtle Farm in 1904, at first handing it to his farm workers as part of their wages, and four generations on his family still runs the firm.

Why were Britain's strong 'white ciders' long sold at exactly 7.5% alcohol?

Higher duty above it: still cider stronger than 7.5% paid about half as much again in duty, so makers pitched white cider right on the line to stay in the cheaper band.

Ciders from which three English counties each hold a Protected Geographical Indication granted in 1996?

Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, known as the Three Counties, won the status in 1996, so a cider may carry one of those county names only if it is made there to a traditional recipe.

What is the drink made by fermenting pear juice rather than apple juice?

Perry comes from small, astringent pears that are too harsh to eat, hard to harvest and quick to rot, which long kept it a farmhouse drink of the English west.

Babycham, launched nationally in 1953, was the first alcoholic drink to do what?

Be advertised on British commercial TV: the 1957 campaign pitched Francis Showering's sparkling pear drink at women, who until then had little to order in a pub beyond port and lemon.

West Country orchard wassailing hangs cider-soaked toast in the branches for which birds?

Robins are seen as the good spirits of the orchard, so cider-soaked toast is hung in the boughs for them while shotguns are fired through the branches to scare the bad ones away.

On which date in the Christmas season does orchard wassailing traditionally take place?

Twelfth Night, 5 or 6 January, is the traditional date, though many West Country orchards wassail on 'Old Twelvey Night', 17 January, by the pre-1752 calendar; the aim is to wake the trees for a good crop.

The Wurzels' 1976 hit 'I Am a Cider Drinker' was a rework of which song?

Paloma Blanca: the Wurzels rewrote the George Baker Selection's 1975 hit 'Una Paloma Blanca' as 'I Am a Cider Drinker', reaching No. 3; their No. 1 'The Combine Harvester' had likewise reworked Melanie's 'Brand New Key'.

A snakebite is a drink of cider mixed in equal parts with what?

Lager and cider in equal measures make a snakebite, a mix some British pubs decline to serve: in 2001 a Harrogate pub refused one to Bill Clinton.

Which Spanish region is by far the country's biggest cider producer?

Asturias makes the great bulk of Spain's cider, and the drink runs so deep in local life that in 2024 Asturian cider culture joined UNESCO's list of intangible heritage.

How is Spain's sidra natural traditionally served?

Poured from a height into a wide glass: the escanciador holds the bottle high overhead and the glass low, so the falling stream aerates the uncarbonated sidra for a fleeting sparkle, drunk at once as a culín.

In a Basque cider house, what do diners do when someone shouts 'txotx'?

Go to the barrels: the cry 'txotx' means one is being opened, and diners leave the table mid-meal to catch the thin jet of cider in their glasses.

Germany's tart Apfelwein is chiefly produced and drunk around which city?

Frankfurt: Hessian Apfelwein is poured from a grey stoneware jug called a Bembel into ribbed glasses, whose diamond pattern catches the light and is said to keep the glass from slipping in the hand.

In Breton crêperies, cider is traditionally served in what?

Ceramic bowls, known as bolées, are what Breton crêperies set out for cider, a habit said to go back to farmhouses where the crockery was terracotta and every drink came in a bowl.

Calvados is apple brandy from which French region?

Normandy: Calvados takes its name from one Norman département but the appellation covers orchards across the region, where the cider is distilled and aged in oak for at least two years.

Pays d'Auge Calvados must be distilled twice in a pot still, like which grape brandy?

Cognac is also distilled twice in copper pot stills, and Calvados makers even call that still a charentais, after Cognac's home region of Charente.

Pommeau, the French apéritif, is made by blending young apple brandy with what?

Unfermented juice: two parts fresh apple must are blended with one part year-old apple brandy, strong enough to keep the juice from fermenting, and the mix ages in oak for at least 14 months.

Ice cider, made from frozen apples, originated in which Canadian province?

Quebec: winemaker Christian Barthomeuf made the first ice cider in 1989 at Dunham, borrowing the idea from Germany's ice wines because the province's cold suits apples far better than grapes.

Applejack was traditionally made by concentrating cider through which process?

Freeze distillation, or 'jacking', leaves cider outdoors in winter and removes the ice that forms, concentrating the alcohol, and also the methanol and fusel oils, in what remains.

William Laird began making applejack in 1698 after settling in which American colony?

New Jersey: Laird settled in Monmouth County, and his family's applejack won such a name that George Washington asked a later Laird for the recipe.

Johnny Appleseed's apples went mostly into hard cider because he refused to do what to his trees?

Graft them: Chapman grew every tree from seed, and seedling apples come up too sour to eat, so, as the writer Michael Pollan puts it, he was really bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier.

In the United States and Canada, what does the phrase 'apple cider' usually mean?

Unfiltered non-alcoholic juice: the fermented kind has to be called 'hard' in North America, where beer-drinking immigrants and then Prohibition, when cider orchards were cut down, all but ended the trade for decades.

Angry Orchard, the cider brand launched across the United States in 2012, is owned by which brewer?

Boston Beer Company, the maker of Samuel Adams, took Angry Orchard nationwide in 2012, and by June 2013 it had overtaken Woodchuck as the best-selling cider in the United States.

In Japan, what does 'cider' usually refer to?

A lemonade-style soft drink: in Japan 'cider' means a fizzy soda such as Mitsuya Cider, so the alcoholic apple drink usually goes by the French 'cidre' to tell the two apart.

Which Swedish cider, sold in Britain since 2003, takes its name from the town where it is brewed?

Kopparberg: brothers Peter and Dan-Anders Bronsman took over the town's shuttered brewery in 1994 and revived it; the town was already known for the Treskilling Yellow, a rare stamp postmarked there in 1857.

Somersby cider was launched in 2008 by which brewer?

Carlsberg launched Somersby in Denmark in 2008, though adverts in many countries credit the cider to 'Lord Somersby', an English nobleman who never existed.

Savanna and Hunters are the two big cider brands of which country?

South Africa: Hunters arrived in 1988 as an alternative to beer and Savanna followed in 1996; both changed hands in 2023, when Heineken bought their maker, Distell.

In which South American country is sidra the go-to fizzy drink at Christmas and New Year?

Argentina: sidra is by far the country's most popular fizzy alcoholic drink over Christmas and New Year, raised in the toast that greets midnight on Christmas Eve.

Cider making in northern Italy collapsed under fascism because of a law protecting what?

Wine producers: a fascist-era law shielding them banned the industrial making of fruit drinks under 7 per cent alcohol, a bar most cider falls below, and northern Italy's cider trade withered.

Laurie Lee's 1959 memoir Cider with Rosie is set in Slad, a village in which county?

Gloucestershire: Slad, where Lee arrived aged three in 1917, lies in a valley two miles from Stroud; years later the Rosie of the title was revealed to be a cousin of his, Rosalind Buckland.

Michael Caine's second Oscar came for The Cider House Rules (1999), set in an orphanage in which state?

Maine: the story unfolds at the St. Cloud's orphanage and an apple orchard on the Maine coast; John Irving won Best Adapted Screenplay for adapting his own 1985 novel.

John Worlidge's 1676 cider treatise championed the new technique of fermenting cider in what?

Glass bottles: the practice had come into vogue in the 1630s, once English glassmakers could make bottles strong enough for the job, and Worlidge urged cider makers to take it up.

Which Whig won the White House in 1840 after being branded the 'log cabin and hard cider' candidate?

William Henry Harrison turned a Democratic paper's sneer about a barrel of cider and a cabin into a man-of-the-people image, though he came from a family of wealthy planters.

Which fried treat, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, is an autumn tradition at cider mills in the American Northeast?

Doughnuts with apple cider in the batter suit the harvest for an old reason: autumn animal slaughters left farms with surplus fat for frying.

Which California company, founded in Watsonville in 1868, is best known for its alcohol-free sparkling apple cider?

Martinelli's was started by two brothers, one of whom had emigrated from Switzerland to his sibling's farm, and the firm has also made a sparkling hard cider.

What is the cloudy, cellulose-rich film of bacteria left floating in raw apple cider vinegar called?

The mother looks unappetizing but is harmless, and a piece of it dropped into cider is enough to start a new batch of vinegar at home.

A black velvet cocktail tops Champagne, or sometimes cider, with an equal measure of which dark beer?

Stout can also be layered rather than mixed: poured over an upturned spoon, the chilled beer floats on top of the fizz in the flute.

Which Founding Father wrote home from Philadelphia that he was homesick for his wife's cider?

John Adams was writing to his wife Abigail, and the same letters grumble about the poor quality of the alcohol he could find in Philadelphia.

The 2025 drama series Apple Cider Vinegar stars Kaitlyn Dever as which wellness guru who faked a cancer diagnosis?

Belle Gibson fooled her following to promote alternative medicine, and the series sets her beside Milla Blake, who turns away from prescribed treatment.

Which US state, also America's top grower of hops and sweet cherries, produces more apples than any other?

Washington owes its orchards to 20th-century irrigation projects in the east of the state, which built a multibillion-dollar fruit industry led by the apple.

Which actor played orphan Homer Wells opposite Charlize Theron in the 1999 film The Cider House Rules?

Tobey Maguire led a cast that also featured Delroy Lindo, Kieran Culkin and the singer Erykah Badu, under director Lasse Hallström.

Which word, also used for spiced wine, describes apple cider heated with cinnamon, orange peel, nutmeg and cloves?

Mulled cider is warmed to just below boiling and is a fixture of the American autumn and winter, from Halloween through New Year's Eve.

Outbreaks of which bacterium in unpasteurized apple cider in the late 1990s pushed US regulators to act on juice safety?

E. coli of the O157:H7 strain was the culprit, and a fatal 1996 outbreak traced to Odwalla juice left that company criminally liable.

Instead of heat pasteurization, some American mills treat fresh apple cider with which kind of light to kill bacteria?

Ultraviolet treatment extends the shelf life without cooking the cider, although plenty of traditional mills sell theirs raw and untreated.

Under which birth name did the pioneer nurseryman Johnny Appleseed sow apple seeds across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois?

John Chapman was a missionary as well as a planter: he handed out his church's books as he went and traded stories with children for a floor to sleep on.

Besides alcohol, which gas do the natural sugars in apples become when cider ferments?

Carbon dioxide does a second job in the tank: late in the ferment it settles as a protective layer over the cider and keeps the air away.

Because apple seeds never grow true to their parent, which technique do orchards use to copy a cider variety?

Grafting cuttings onto rootstocks clones a tree exactly, and the method was certainly known to the apple growers of classical antiquity.

A dash of which fruit cordial turns a British pub snakebite into a 'snakebite and black'?

Blackcurrant cordial earns the mix a second, much rarer pub nickname as well: the Diesel.

Cyser, a close cousin of cider, gets most of its fermentable sugar from which ingredient added to the apples?

Honey makes cyser a kind of mead, and blends are named by style, so one flavored with cinnamon might be sold as an apple cyser or as a cinnamon metheglin.

On a traditional cider press, what dairy-sounding name is given to the stack of crushed apples layered with straw?

Cheese built up in alternating layers was a classic way to load the press, in mills that once crushed the fruit under a heavy stone wheel circling a trough.

Which brewing giant became owner of Strongbow cider when it took over Scottish & Newcastle in 2008?

Heineken announced plans in 2011 to take the brand global, and it brews regional versions at its own cider mill in Belgium.

Brothers Cider took off after the Showering brothers were offered a bar in 1995 at which British music festival?

Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis gave them a pitch near the Jazz World Stage, a fitting break for the sons of the family behind Babycham.

Which family-owned English cider maker has pressed apples in the village of Sandford since its founding in 1904?

Thatchers takes its name from founder William Thatcher and has stayed in family hands in North Somerset.

Aspall, which spells its drink 'cyder', makes it at Aspall Hall in which English county?

Suffolk's best-known cidery grew from apple trees that the Chevallier family, owners of the hall, brought over from their native Channel Islands.

Woodchuck Hard Cider, the first American cider company to sell a million cases in a year, is made in which state?

Vermont's Woodchuck was first made in 1991 at a winery in Proctorsville, then moved to a larger home in Middlebury in 2000.

Which US state made apple cider its official state beverage in 2010, when most states with one had picked milk?

New Hampshire stands out on a list where state after state chose milk, though Florida went for orange juice and Indiana for plain water.

Roxbury Russet, a cider apple believed to be the oldest variety bred in the United States, arose in which colony?

Massachusetts settlers found and named it in the mid-17th century in the town of Roxbury, and it is one of the apples commonly pressed for heritage ciders.

The wild origin of the domesticated apple, the fruit behind every cider, lies in which former Soviet republic?

Kazakhstan's wild Malus sieversii was the starting point, and repeated crossing and domestication along the way reshaped the fruit.

Which country grows roughly half of the world's apples, far ahead of the United States and Turkey?

China harvested about 51 million tonnes in 2024, more than ten times the crop of the runner-up.

Which Nordic country has grown apples along its western fjords since the 13th century and has a long cider history?

Norway's cider country lies along two great fjords in the west, the Hardangerfjord and the Sognefjord.

Which novelist won an Oscar for adapting his own 1985 book The Cider House Rules for the screen?

John Irving turned the long struggle to get the novel filmed into a book of its own, My Movie Business.

In Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox, which farmer's secret cider cellar do the animals tunnel into?

Bean's cellar gives the raiders a fright: they are nearly caught by his servant Mabel and have to face down the resident Rat.

Which English Romantic poet's ode 'To Autumn' pictures the season watching the last drops leave a cider press?

John Keats moves the poem through a drowsy afternoon, with the grain being winnowed and the harvester asleep before the press gives up its final drops.

Which Frankish ruler ordered skilled brewers kept on his estates to make cider-like apple drinks and ale?

Charlemagne's rules for the royal estates, the Capitulare de villis, required each steward to keep craftsmen who knew how to make such drinks.

The orchard toast 'wassail' comes from an Old Norse greeting with which literal meaning?

Be in good health was the salute, and it travelled with a companion phrase, drinkhail, that scribes spelled in at least half a dozen different ways.

Which British prime minister stepped down in 1763 as his proposed tax on cider production deepened his unpopularity?

Lord Bute wanted four shillings on each large cask of cider made, and he was replaced in office by George Grenville.

The cider tax proposed in Britain in 1763 was to be four shillings on every one of which large casks?

Hogshead by hogshead, the levy on cider makers stirred a dispute fierce enough to add to the government's growing unpopularity.

Farm workers in Devon, Dorset and Wiltshire once received a generous daily allowance of cider as part of what?

Their wages came partly in drink across the West Country, and small farms in Wales went on making cider for their hands into the 20th century.

Which floating glass instrument tells a cider maker how much sugar is in the juice before it ferments?

Hydrometer readings rely on density: sugar makes juice heavier than water, and a version scaled for sugar is called a saccharometer.

Bacteria turn the alcohol in fermented cider into which acid, the one that gives cider vinegar its bite?

Acetic acid makes up about 5% of apple cider vinegar, which is otherwise roughly 94% water.

Rosé cider can get its blush naturally from apple varieties such as Amour Rouge, which have what unusual feature?

Pink flesh is the natural route, but other makers borrow the color from red grape skins, rose petals or hibiscus.

Which British organisation, better known for defending cask beer, also campaigns for what it calls real cider and perry?

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, says a real cider is never made from juice that was concentrated and then diluted.

Which county of Northern Ireland is nicknamed the Orchard County because of its many apple orchards?

Armagh's northern end flattens into low rolling country that drops to sea level at the shore of Lough Neagh.

Commercial cider making began in 1935 in Clonmel, a town in the south of which Irish county?

Tipperary's cider story started with a local man who set up his mill on the site of an old brewery in Dowd's Lane.

Chileans separate sparkling 'sidra' from homemade apple cider, which they call by which name?

Chicha de manzana, or apple chicha, is the full name, and Chileans rank the homemade drink below the sparkling kind.

Which name, borrowed from winemaking, do cider makers give the layer of spent sediment that settles after fermenting?

Lees in a beer brewery go by another word, trub, though sediment from a second ferment keeps the winemaker's name in both trades.

Which traditional technique slows a low-nitrogen ferment so that French-style cider keeps some natural sweetness?

Keeving leaves residual sugar in the finished cider, and that sugar goes on to build extra sparkle as the drink ages.

The cider apple first called the Scudamore Crab, after the diplomat who planted it widely, is better known as what?

Redstreak was Scudamore's bid to match the superior cider of the Continent: tradition says he raised it from a pip brought home from his embassy.

Germany's Apfelwein is traditionally served from which paunchy grey stoneware jug decorated in blue?

Bembel jugs are salt-glazed, and taverns sell apple wine by the jugful much as bars elsewhere sell beer by the pitcher.

Which type of alcohol, the kind in every alcoholic drink, is produced when the sugar in apple juice ferments into cider?

Ethanol is such a habit for cider yeasts that they keep producing it even when oxygen is present, a trait known as being Crabtree positive.

Which country is the European Union's largest apple producer and presses some of the crop into its own cider?

Poland grew about 3.4 million tonnes of apples in 2024, enough to place it fourth among all the world's growers.

Which sitting president, painted as a wealthy snob, lost the 1840 election to the Whigs' 'hard cider' campaign?

Van Buren was in truth the son of a tavernkeeper, while the rival sold to voters as a cabin-dwelling everyman came from wealthy planters.