From myneworleans.com
In the United States cider is a fermented beverage made from unfiltered apple or pear juice. Styles can be sweet or dry, carbonated, or still. To make mead, fermented honey (and sometimes spices, fruit, hops, and other agricultural products) are mixed with water. But no honey, no mead. Fermented honey must be present.
The alcohol content in in hard cider varies from less than 3% for one in the style of the French cidre doux, to 8.5% – 12% for a hard cider in the traditional English style. The alcohol volume in mead can reach a walloping 20 %.
Mead came first. It is believed to have been concocted by accident by nomadic Africans. In the process of pollinating flowers bees gathered traces of adaptive, wild yeast, which then turned up in their honey, creating the ingredients needed for fermentation. Nomads collected rainwater in tree stumps and spaces where bees had their hives. They liked the taste, and they liked the buzz. Life back then was probably a weird combination of terror and boredom, so the buzz spread quickly about the feel-good stuff, soon making its way to China, then Europe, where the sea-faring Vikings made it their beverage of choice. No one understood the process of fermentation. Some thought it was magic, others, like the Greeks, gave mead a spiritual connotation. Meads lost their popularity with the rise of wine. Grapes were abundant and cheap compared to honey.
As with so many things gustatory, the first recorded history of the consumption of cider dates to the time of Roman rule. In 55 BCE Julius Caesar observed the Celtic Britons fermenting cider from native crabapples. Cider remains popular with the Brits as well as the French in the regions of Brittany and Normandy. The Puritans planted apple trees shortly after hitting Plymouth Rock and most homesteads had an apple orchard, making cider the most common beverage in the colony. Even children drank it in a diluted form as the water was often fetid and the alcohol killed the parasites. In 1899 the U.S. produced 55 million gallons of hard cider.
Cider production fell as people moved from farms to cities and beer consumption rose due to demand by newly arrived German and Irish immigrants and the availability of inexpensive grain in the Midwest. By 1919 when Prohibition was enacted, cider production had fallen to 13 million gallons. No concrete records exist, but it is safe to assume the at-home production of cider rose once again with those not interested in government-mandated teetotalling.
In recent years there has been a resurgent interest in cider and mead, making it one of the fastest-growing segments of the liquor industry.
What to serve with Dry Cider and Mead
“Mead is hard to pair,” Moore said. “Fresh goat cheese and bread are about it.” Moore and Powell suggest serving dry ciders with cheese and charcuterie. “The cider is acidic, and the cheese and charcuterie are fatty and salty, making the pairing a match made in heaven.”
No comments:
Post a Comment