This month on Culinate.com:
The cider house rules: Real cider, for adults
> For his current bottling, Irvine’s Vintage Blend, he’s using a mix of bittersweets (tannic apples with low acid) and sharps (tart apples with low tannin): Yarlington Mill, Brown Snout, Vilberie, and Chisel Jersey. (Have you noticed how any article about apples soon devolves into a list of apple varieties with evocative names?)
While researching this article I came across the fact that some people believe drinking cider vinegar will make them live to 120. Since hard cider is the necessary precursor to cider vinegar and I drank plenty of it for research purposes, I figure I’m good for 117 years at least.
Oh, and I also appear in a great gift idea column which you should NOT read until after Christmas if you are Jake.
You should read Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox to your daughter. Mr. Fox and Badger have some great things to say about “real” cider. Or listen to Dahl reading it himself with books on tape; he’s a great reader.
We’ve read it. That is the most dark, cynical book I’ve ever read. Iris loved it, of course.
Matthew, I loved your cider article. I think including the interactive cidery locator was a stroke of genius. Nice work!
The hard cider house rules only applies if it’s real, homemade hard cider… not that stuff you find on the shelf next to the Zima and the Bartles and James.
The former will help you live to see 120. The latter will only make it feel as if you’re already there.
Happy Holidays!