Cider Apples

Rare & Heritage Fruit Cultivars #2

C. Thornton

Cider, also known as hard cider, is a traditional alcoholic beverage made by the fermentation of juice from specific apples. It can be brewed at home.

This pleasant – and reputedly health-giving – drink has a long history. It is reported that when the Romans arrived in England in 55 BC, they found the local Kentish villagers drinking a delicious cider-like beverage made from apples.

Nobody knows how long the English locals had been making this apple drink before the arrival of the Romans.

Cider apples are cultivars selected for characteristics that make high quality cider. Early settlers sailed to new lands bringing these special fruits, thus distributing them across the globe. Some of these unique, historic cultivars have survived through the years and been rediscovered by enthusiastic brewers. We list some of them here, along with what is known of their history, description, flavour characteristics and a few sources for trees.

This book is one of a series written for ‘backyard farmers’ of the 21st century. The series focuses on rare and heritage fruit in Australia, although it includes much information of interest to fruit enthusiasts around the world. ‘Heritage’ or ‘heirloom’ fruits such as old-fashioned varieties of apple, quince, fig, plum, peach and pear are increasingly popular due to their diverse flavors, excellent nutritional qualities and other desirable characteristics. They are part of our horticultural, vintage and culinary inheritance.

To pick a tree-ripened heritage fruit from your own back yard and bite into it is to experience the taste of fresh food as our forefathers knew it. During the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries fruit diversity was huge, but in modern supermarkets only a limited range of commercial fruit varieties is now available to consumers.

Heritage, heirloom and rare fruit enthusiasts across the world are currently reviving our horticultural legacy by renovating old orchards and identifying ‘lost’, unusual and historic fruit varieties. The goal is to make a much wider range of fruit trees available again to the home gardener.

This series of handbooks aims to help.