All things Cider!

Autumn looms large, BST ends (seriously, when can we move to BST permanently?!), and as the we come to the last of the warmer days marked by crisp clear mornings there’s nothing like a glass of cider at the end of the week. But what if we mix with it? To my mind, good cider can be much like a Champagne. A result of care and attention and tradition. It’s also much cheaper than Champagne to make cocktails with!

1/ Fox Pass

2/ Rhubarb’n’Cider

3/ Escalier

FOX PASS – serves 1

There’s a wonderful Negroni variant called the Sbagliato (Ess-By-Art-O), which omits the gin in favour of Prosecco. Thought to be a mistaken order that sits somewhere between a Negroni and an Americano. The name itself translates from Italian as “The Mistake”.

What if we do something like that with Cider? I’m going to use a green apple liqueur, a French ambre vermouth (a sweeter and more aromatic vermouth similar to a Bianco), a wash of Calvados to mimic the mistaken gin part in the original and a nice medium bodied fruity cider. It works both as Aperitif and Digestif depending on what you’ve eaten.

Add the liquors and bitters to the glass, then fill it with cubed ice
Top with your cider and give it a quick stir.
Top up with ice as needed, then garnish with the large orange twist.

RHUBARB’N’CIDER

After a Summer that has no doubt been seasoned with Aperol Spritzes, why not continue that trend into Autumn? Our family holiday this year was to the south of France, and there I discovered a wonderful type of light abv cider (3%) labelled Cidre Rose. Rose cider is made using pink flesh apples, or pink skinned apples (and sometimes even by adding red fruits to the fermentation). It’s light, easy, fruity and fun. Highly recommended and forms the base for this wicked Spritz. Serve it in the traditional Normandy style – a Bollee – or a china bowl of around 12-14oz.

Served in a china bowl – Bollee – in the fashion of Normandy ciders.

Add the Aperol and Tonic to your bowl, introduce the large ice cube (or two), and then top with the rose cider and stir once or twice. Garnish or serve with a baton of rhubarb dipped in sugar.
If you want to get fancy, blend caster sugar with some raspberry powder to create a raspberry powdered sugar and dip your rhubarb in this.

ESCALIER

Loosely based around a French ’75 cocktail – gin, sugar, lemon, champagne – this I find a truly refreshing way to enjoy your cider. The name is compounded from my London cocktail roots and a nod to the French cocktail origins. Using a pear gin from Cheshire, and a Normandy cider –> Apples and Pears -> Stairs in rhyming slang -> Escalier is a staircase in French. Bottoms Up!

In a shaker add the lemon, elderflower and gin and shake quickly with some ice.
Strain into your highball and then fill the glass with cubed ice.
Top with the cider, stir once and garnish.