How to drink cider

[Thomas Fehige]

As I don't live in an area with a cider tradition, I find different recommendations as to e.g. the optimal temperature and the proper glasses.

In German sources from around Frankfurt, I find a recommended temperature of around 12°C or 10°--14°C. One "modern" cidermaker in Hamburg recommends to serve their stuff ice cold and/or over ice. In this article in the financial times they show cider on ice with a piece of apple in it.

I read somewhere that cider should not be served in too small glasses, because its taste is experienced better if it is not sipped like Champagne but drunk (quaffed?) by the mouthful. I'm sure it works quicker that way. Around Frankfurt they use these glasses in sizes of 0.25L and 0.5L (circa half pint and pint, respectively). Along the rivers Saar and Mosel they use porcelain mugs.

Any thoughts on all this? Do you prefer different glasses or temperatures for different styles? Dry vs. sweet, still vs. fizzy? Or for different occasions: Pub, backyard, village fest, formal dinner?

Personally I'm happy with something between my cellar temperature of about 15° and my drinks fridge of about 10°, and with our English pub half-pint glasses. To show off for guests we use 0.1L champagne flutes.

Cheers -- Thomas

[Henry]

IMHO it depends of course on what and when you are drinking.  Regarding my own (full juice) cider I like it chilled to about 5-8oC,In the summer, when temperatures get up to mid 30s where I live,  and this is also because it warms up quickly.  If it is really hot I might add an ice cube or two.  In the Winter my serving temperature is more like 10-12oC, and maybe as high as 15.  Without doubt the flavour comes through better at higher temperature, but as I mentioned I enjoy mine also as a cooling drink.
The ABV is usually between 7.0% and 8.0%, so pint glasses are out: I like to appreciate mine in a wine type goblet with a stem.

Best wishes

Henry

[Andrew Lea]

On 18/08/2015 11:32, Thomas Fehige wrote:

>
> In German sources from around Frankfurt, I find a recommended
> temperature of around 12°C or 10°--14°C.

That is a good serving temperature for most still dry traditional ciders
in the UK too. Putting them in the fridge kills the flavour. Think of
traditional ciders as if they were red wines or British draught beers in
terms of drinking temperature.

> One "modern" cidermaker in Hamburg recommends to serve their stuff ice cold and/or over ice.

That is because he has 'designed' it so. Here in the UK and even more so
in North America and Australia nearly all modern ciders are designed for
drinking straight out of the fridge or a chilled keg. I notice that
Thatchers have just introduced a 330 ml bottle for some of their range
which is described as 'fridge friendly'. That is a manifestation of that
trend and of modern consumer expectation.

To do that you have to build in appropriate levels of sugar, acid and
carbonation when you blend. Think how horrible warm Coca-Cola is - it
was designed for drinking at fridge temperature and that's where it
'delivers'. The same is true of 'modern' ciders - they are not designed
for room temperature drinking.

When I blend my cider for contract bottling (sweetened and carbonated) I
always do my (carbonated) test blends at just above fridge temperature
(around 8C) because that's my target consumption temperature for that
style of product. But if I'm blending for non-carbonated dry or off-dry
cider I work at room temperature because it suits that product type better.

As for glasses, I think the best type ideally is something that tapers
towards the top so you can concentrate the headspace aromas. A really
big ISO wine tasting glass would be good but I don't think they exist
;-). Though for traditional flat ciders with little headspace aroma
anyway, straight sided tumblers are probably as good.

Andrew

--
near Oxford, UK
Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Peter Ellis]

On 18/08/2015 18:34, Andrew Lea wrote:
> As for glasses, I think the best type ideally is something that tapers
> towards the top so you can concentrate the headspace aromas. A really
> big ISO wine tasting glass would be good but I don't think they exist

Maybe
http://www.riedel.com/collections/glass-collections/d/o-riedel/big-o-cabernet/

Riedel don't seem to do a specifically cider glass. They do do wine
specific glasses. I went to a presentation where they were introducing a
Malvasija specific glass, presented by Herr Riedel himself. I was
initially skeptical, as he came across as a hotshot salesman, but he had
us tasting all sorts of things in different glasses and after an hour or
so of this, I understood the difference that an appropriately shaped
glass made. They weren't cheap, though, and at something like a fiver a
glass, I wondered how many restaurants would risk them with their
customers !
If there was serious interest, they could probably be induced to produce
cider specific glasses; they did so for our main local white wine.

Cheers

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[Miles Howe]

I have a collection of Riedel wine glasses and have tried them all with cider. My preference for cider is the 'O' Shiraz/syrah wine tumbler with a capacity of 620 cc, a tapered top, thin glass and no stem -  ideal (I haven't tried the big O cabernet you reference which is even bigger I think).

I agree it would be fantastic if Riedel could make a cider specific glass. 

Maybe someone with a bit of clout should approach them?

Cheers

Miles

[Jody Scott]

I’m not sure if many people have seen this about Riedel recently but they’re coming in for rather a lot of stick for it in the press.

 

http://hosemasterofwine.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/riedel-threatens-hosemaster-of-wine.html

 

Worth reading the original for some fairly amusing satire.

 

I had Mr. Riedel present to a group of us when studying for the Master of wine a while back and  we were surprised by the false science used to back up his claims.

 

I agree with Anderw, a simple tapered wine glass will do a very good job perfectly well a lot of the time.

 

JODY SCOTT 
ZEFFER CIDER CO.

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[Thomas Fehige]

Quite illuminating. In one of the comments on Tim Atkin's page I found a link to this article from Gourmet: "Shattered Myths", that basically sums up scientific research as to how wine glasses' shapes relate to the taste experience: There is no such relation in a double blind setup, not even for the nasal components. Only one study found a tiny but statistically relevant variation in the "sour" perception. But there is a huge amount of placebo effect in real-world wine drinking. A bit like a picture frame that doesn't change the painting it contains but very much its perception.

My own ciders are all fermented dry and moderately bottle carbonated. I have some white wine glasses that are a little slimmer than ordinary (special offer from Lidl, very cheap, don't tell anyone ;) ), I think they may look nice. They are slightly tulipy and still wide enough so the nose doesn't stick out over the other side when you drink. For the evening glass of cider with my wife I'll stick with glasses that hold a quarter of a litre (or half a pint), as our cider lives in stylish half-litre beer bottles.

Andrew, thank you for that background on cider design and drinking temperature. I'm not really used to ice cold drinks, so when I tasted that "modern" cider from Hamburg it was at somewhere between 10 and 15°C. It tasted too sweet, but still thin, bland, much too fizzy. Now I know why, I guess I'll try it again, colder. Maybe I'll even try it from the bottle through a straw like its maker suggests. I mean, he claims that his stuff is made from 100% fresh-pressed juice from organic apples, without any additional sugar, colouring or aroma. It can't be that bad.

Cheers -- Thomas

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[greg l.]

It's not too hard to convince people that wine tastes better from expensive glasses than cheap glasses. It's all about perception. Once you develop a preference for a certain glass, cider really will taste better from that glass. I like the glasses called schooner glasses in which beer is served in Sydney and NSW, about 425ml (roughly half a 750ml bottle). Australia used to have distinctive glasses in each state for beer, in NSW it was schooners and middies. In Queensland beer was always drunk in small seven ounce glasses, supposedly because it was too hot and a big glass would get warm before it was finished, probably more likely because the local beer (fourx) is too horrible to face a whole big glass. Now globalisation means a lot of pubs just serve pints and half pints. Anyway I like my cider in a schooner glass and it doesn't taste the same in any other glass. Room temperature for me which is regarded as a bit odd in Australia.

Greg

On Wednesday, 19 August 2015 18:45:04 UTC+10, Thomas Fehige wrote:

[Dougal]

Three quarter full ISO glass for me, served 12-14*C.  That will do nicely ...

[Mark Rudge]

Anyone tried the 'Cream of the crop' Vintage cider glass from Dartington? vintage-cider-glass 

[Ray Blockley]

With tongue firmly in cheek:
I do hope this doesn't get into the personal & abusive territory of
"Craft Beer" (ie very cold, very fizzy, (very?) expensive) where you
simply *have* to have a certain style of glass to appreciate the
nuances of the drink.... ;-)

I am happy to drink cider out of most mugs / cups / glasses, however,
my wife has a collection of 2- & 3-handled cider jugs which she much
prefers (see photo).

As to temperature, my preference is ambient temperature or the warmer
side of cellar temps.

Ray

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 10:52 AM, Mark Rudge <mark....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone tried the 'Cream of the crop' Vintage cider glass from Dartington?
> vintage-cider-glass
>

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[Peter Ellis]

On 20/08/2015 11:52, Mark Rudge wrote:

Anyone tried the 'Cream of the crop' Vintage cider glass from Dartington? vintage-cider-glass 

Thirty Six Pounds for ONE glass ??
I thought Riedel were dear !

[Thomas Fehige]

Am Donnerstag, 20. August 2015 11:52:29 UTC+2 schrieb Mark Rudge:

Anyone tried the 'Cream of the crop' Vintage cider glass from Dartington? vintage-cider-glass

 

Apart from the price: Isn't it ugly? What's that fat stem for?

Look at this collection: much cheaper and much clearer shapes. ;)

Cheers -- Thomas

[Alex Slater]

As it happens I did a bit of research into "traditional" glasses for cider (I was a researching a gift for someone) and found on Archive.Org  this interesting (to me anyway!) old book on glassware that covers the subject:

"Old English Glasses.
An Account Of Glass Drinking Vessels In England,
From Early Times To The End Of The Eighteenth Century"
By Albert Hartshorne, Published 1897.

https://archive.org/details/oldenglishglasse00hart

Here's a relevant section (pages 311-313, the illustrations I've attached).

Group XII. Glasses, Cider, Perry.

With respect to cider glasses, Mansel makes no mention of them, nor does Greene in his letters and "forms" for orders to Venice ; and there is no evidence that special shapes were made before the middle of the eighteenth century.

Obviously any fairly capacious cup would serve the purpose, whether of earthenware - as commonly used in Somerset at the present day - china, or glass ; but there is a modern sumptuary fiction that cider tastes better out of a vessel of silver than from any other. Such was not the view taken a hundred and thirty years ago.

So little was known about old cider glasses that it was believed both by connoisseurs and dealers in Worcestershire that they had no special shape. After many inquiries the author was fortunate enough to obtain in Hereford two examples of glasses of quite a different form to any that have already been noticed in the present work. The one with a brilliant air-twisted stem, engraved in an admirable manner with an apple-branch border, which has been oil-gilded (Plate 51); and the other with an opaque white twisted stem, engraved on one side with a conventionalised apple tree, and opposite with a large-winged insect - a heavy butterfly or, absit omen, the codlin-moth (Fig. 287).

In Mr. Singer's collection is a cider glass loosely engraved on one side with an apple tree, and on the other with two barrels, and the words, NO EXCISE (Fig. 288). Mr. P. H. Bate has a somewhat similar example tending to the ogee shape. These words are part of the old popular cry which had been revived by the conduct of Wilkes and the appearance in 1763 of No.45 of the North Briton, and, as to cider, by the excise regulations of the same year touching it. So the date of these vessels is assured, and it is probable that special cider glasses were now for the first time made, in consequence and in support of the clamour that was raised. Further examples bearing the same shape have come under the author's notice or fallen into his hands. They leave no doubt that, for whatever other drink the unengraved ones may have served, the original purpose of all was for the strong cider, treated almost like wine, as was the "Fine Ale" of later times, and representing in England "le gros cidre pard," "le vin de Pomone" of Normandy. Here, then, we have, four centuries after his time, the powerful siscra, the "sidir" of Wycliffe's translation, and which he was minded that St. John should not drink.

It is not likely that the no excise cider glasses were made in any large quantity, but merely to meet an outburst of public passion which soon calmed ; but the shape seems to have been continued for a time.

Given my orchard last season the codlin moth decorated glass would be totally appropriate for my cider, and I guess for the UK folks perhaps it's time to restore the "NO EXCISE" glasses!

[Andrew Lea]

On 25/08/2015 10:53, Alex Slater wrote:

> They leave no doubt that, for whatever
> other drink the unengraved ones may have served, the original purpose of
> all was for the strong cider, treated almost like wine, as was the "Fine
> Ale" of later times, and representing in England "le gros cidre pard,"
> "le vin de Pomone" of Normandy.

Interesting reference Alex.

There is a good collection of these cider glasses in the Cider Museum in
Hereford.
https://www.facebook.com/252540931530826/photos/pb.252540931530826.-2207520000.1440505660./807136102737970/?type=3&theater

And the famous Scudamore cider glass is in the Museum of London but not
currently on display
http://archive.museumoflondon.org.uk/ceramics/pages/object.asp?obj_id=119020

The Taunton Cider Company also had a fine collection of cider glasses
and mugs at one time. Nick B, do you know where they ended up?

[darlenehayes]

This is terrific. Thanks for sharing it, Thomas. 

[Nick Bradstock]

Whereabouts of TCC collection?

I don't know for certain. I believe the collection of early original material is in the care of C&C group plc (successors to Matthew Clark) and stored at their Shepton Mallet Cider Mill / Magners GB subsidiary.

There might have been glasses in the collection but TCC focused on china/earthenware mugs and jugs, etc, - probably because Bulmers had bought up all the glasses.

There were several TCC-replica presentation mugs, a specimen original item being chosen by TCC each year in the 1980s and 1990s to be faithfully copied (not forged, since the fact was fired into the glaze with the year of making; this info can be found on the base of the mug).

Also, since the mid-20th century it had long been a feature of TCC's point of sale material (though the term 'POS' was to be coined far into the future) to issue heavy-duty pint & 2-handled quart mugs, glazed either pink or blue, to licencees for bar use. These had the original logo of an early 19th century oldest inhabitant raising his mug of cider in thanks (for having been bought a pint?) and saying 'Good Health' as he touched his hat in recognition. These items wouldn't do today at all, and for so many different social reasons.....

For those that might be further interested, there's an excellent website built and maintained by former TCC personnel with valuable info - and some references to mugs although the items shown all appear to me to be the replica items.

http://www.thetauntoncidercompany.co.uk/Home.html

Sorry I can't help further....

Best
Nick

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

On the subject of glasses used for cider...
I am on my way back from Austria, where I was invited to participate to the Salon des Mostes this last weekend.
This is a very interesting event - in the Mostviertel region of Austria, there is a good number of perry producers - they make dry still perries that are somewhat similar to a white whine (but naturally with perry aroma)... The number of huge old perry trees in the region is simply amazing!

An interesting feature of the region is that most producers got along to use the same glass everywhere. This is a fine cristal glass (see picture) that may be found at all the tasting rooms of the cideries. I can't say if these glasses make the perry actually taste better, but it is certainly very pleasant to drink it in such a fine quality glass! Most of them also have an etching of their name on the glass.

Claude