As American as Apple . . . Cider

October is the perfect time to explore American-made ciders and celebrate the country’s return to its roots as a cider drinking nation

Celebrating America’s return to its cider drinking roots. Photo by Giovanna Gomes on Unsplash

There’s a reason we use the expression “as American as apple pie” instead of cherry pie or pecan pie: Americans love apples. We love them so much that we eat more apples than any other fruit, according to USApple, an industry association representing more than 5,000 apple growers.

The Agricultural Marketing Resource Center estimates that Americans consume an average of 26 pounds of apples each year, in various forms: straight from the tree, as juice, in pies, fritters, and turnovers, as apple sauce and apple butter — the list goes on and on.

But there’s one form of apples that Americans have loved even longer than apple pie, and that’s hard cider.

When I was a kid, jugs of fresh apple cider appeared in supermarkets and at local farm stands every fall, but I didn’t learn about “hard” cider until my first visit to an English pub in the early 1990s. I’m not a big beer drinker so I ordered a half pint of cider, and a lifelong fan was born!

AMERICA’S CIDER HERITAGE

Once I returned home, I discovered hard cider was difficult to find in the United States, but that wasn’t always the case. At one time it was the most popular beverage in…