Cider: Britain's Most Misunderstood Drink?
The Food Programme
BBC
4.4 • 976 Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Award winning drinks writer Pete Brown joins Sheila Dillon to explain why bottles of cider should be the drink of choice on the UK's dinner tables.
A cider revival has been building for a number of years, many credit the "over-ice" advertising campaigns of the last decade for raising mainstream interest. What's happened since that time has been fascinating to watch for producers and drinkers alike.
At the premium, craft end of the cider business more and more small scale producers have arrived on the scene. Wales alone, which all but lost its cider making culture, now has more than 40 new ciders being produced. Pete Brown, author of the recently published, World's Best Cider, has travelled across the globe to document the fact that this is a revival that's spread far beyond the United Kingdom.
As part of this world tour Sheila and Pete tell the story of the Tieton Cider Works, a new cider business in Washington State in North West America. The Tieton producers are experimenting with new techniques and flavours, including the use of hops and natural fruits. This might sound like a step too far for many traditionalists and in the programme Sheila and Pete give their verdict.
Meanwhile in high-street pubs, supermarkets and off-licences more big brands have moved into the cider market, including Carlsberg and Stella Artois, they along with more familiar names like Bulmers and Thatchers have launched a wide range of fruit ciders. It's this part of the market that is really booming, but is it really cider? Sheila looks at the often confusing world of the ingredients and liquids that are allowed to become part of a glass of cider.
Produced by Dan Saladino.
Transcript
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| 0:57.4 | this is a |
| 1:09.0 | for me I'm tasting the whole fruits, apple juice, apple skins. It's a rainy October day outside and this makes we think that we're not stood in a shop we're stood in |
| 1:12.8 | an orchard somewhere ready for the harvest. When I taste it I go I want to chew it |
| 1:19.9 | great side is a chewy but that chewiness has to unravel and tell a story. |
| 1:26.8 | Which is what we're also doing with sider in this program. |
| 1:30.2 | It's boom time, not just here in Britain, but around the world. |
| 1:34.0 | We're looking at our new planting we call cider view. |
| 1:37.0 | It's a 30-acre planting of seven varieties of cider apples. |
| 1:41.0 | There's about 40,000 trees. I think it's the largest plant in the state of |
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