CIDER.
The original meaning of the word cider[46] appears to have been strong drink. It was used to designate a liquor made of the juice of any fruit pressed, and an example of the word in this use is to be found in Wycliffe’s Bible, in the speech of the angel to Zacharias (Luke i. 15), in allusion to his promised progeny: He schal not drynke wyn and syder. The next meaning is that of a liquor made from the juice of apples expressed and fermented.
“A flask of cider from his father’s vats,
Prime, which I knew.”
Tennyson: Audley Court.
We have little information about cider either from the Greeks or the Latins. It would seem that it was not known to them, if we may trust Ainsworth, who translates cider by succus e pomis expressus, and Byzantius, who gives μηλίτης (οἶνος) εἶδ. ποτοῦ as the equivalent for cidre.[47] Gerard, in his Historie of Plants, published in 1597, says that he saw in the pastures and hedgerows about the grounds of a “worshipful gentleman,” dwelling two miles from Hereford, called M. Roger Bodnome, so many trees of all sorts that the servants drunk for the most part no other drink but that which is made from apples. The quantity, says Gerard, was such that by the report of the gentleman himself, the parson “hath for tithe many hogsheads of Syder.” This reference to the servants and the parson drinking it, but not to the “gentleman,” seems to show that the liquor was not then held in much esteem.
Bacon placed cider after wine, and we have followed in our arrangement of the present volume his august example. This great philosopher speaks of cider and perry as “notable beverages on sea-voyages.” The cider of his day did not, he says, sour by crossing the line, and was good against sea-sickness. He also speaks of cider, a “wonderful pleasing and refreshing drink,” in his New Atlantis.
John Evelyn’s French Gardener gives much information on this subject, and his Pomona is, says Stopes, the first monograph on the manufacture of cider in England.
Cider is made in many parts of Barbary, and in Canada. In all the States, apples are abundant, particularly in New York and New England, and cider is a common drink of the inhabitants. And it is as excellent as it is common. That of New Jersey is generally considered the best. It is curious that the least juicy apples afford the best liquor. Cider of a superior quality is abundant in Cork, Waterford, and other counties of Ireland, where it was introduced, we are told, in the reign of Elizabeth. It was first made at Affane, in the county of Waterford.[48] Worledge’s Vinetum Britannicum, 1676, and his Most Easy Method for Making the Best Cider, 1687, have been considered at full length by Mr. Stopes. Worledge’s press is an improvement upon one shown in Evelyn’s Pomona.
Cider appears in Russia under the name of Kvas. There is Yàblochni kvas, made of apples; Grùshevoi kvas, of pears, a perry; and Malinovoi kvas, of raspberries. George Turberville, secretary to the English Embassy to Moscow in the year 1568, mentions kvas in a description of the Russians of his time as:—
“Folk fit to be of Bacchus’ train, so quaffing is their kind;
Drink is their whole desire, the pot is all their pride.
The soberest head doth once a day stand needful of a guide.
If he to banquet bid his friends, he will not shrink
On them at dinner to bestow a dozen kinds of drink,
Such liquor as they have, and as the country gives;
But chiefly two, one called kwas, whereby the Moujike lives,
Small ware and waterlike, but somewhat tart in taste;
The rest is mead, of honey made, wherewith their lips they baste.”
Stopes is of opinion that the finest cider is made, not in the west, as has been commonly asserted, but in the east of England. This authority seems particularly to favour the Ribston pippins of Norfolk.
“Worcester,” says Macaulay, in his History of England, ch. iii., “is the queen of the cider land;” but Devon and Somerset, Gloucester and Norfolk, might dispute the title. To make good cider the apples should be quite ripe, as the amount of sugar in ripe apples is 11·0; in unripe apples, 4·9; in over-ripe apples, 7·95. The fermentation should proceed slowly. Brande says that the strongest cider contains, in 100 volumes, 9·87 of alcohol of 92 per cent; the weakest, 5·21. By distillation, cider produces a good spirit; but it is seldom converted to that purpose in consequence of its acidity, which, however, is greatly remedied by rectification.
Much cider is distilled in Normandy, and sent to this country under the name of arrack, or some other foreign spirit, according to its flavour. To the Normans the invention of this liquor has been attributed. They are also said to have received it from the Moors. Whitaker (Hist. Manchester, i. 321) says this drink was introduced into this country by the Romans; and Simmonds (p. 25) that it was first used in England about 1284.
AN OLD CIDER MILL.
Cider has been immortalised by Phillips in a classical poem, in imitation of Virgil’s Georgics, which, according to Johnson, “need not shun the presence of the original.” Milton’s nephew thought that cider—
“far surmounts
Gallic or Latin grapes.”