Everything You Need to Know About Apple Cider

Apple cider offers a sweet, crisp taste that pairs perfectly with cool air and autumn leaves. This popular fall drink can be served hot or cold, making it a versatile treat to be enjoyed by all. Below, we’ve provided a few important facts about the classic beverage, including how to make your own apple cider and what types of apples work best.

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What Is Apple Cider?

Apple cider is a perishable, non-alcoholic drink made from raw apple juice. It’s a tradition to serve apple cider in the fall season, especially around holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving. Fresh-pressed apple cider is usually unfiltered and unpasteurized, but apple cider sold in stores is often pasteurized to extend the shelf life.

Is Apple Cider Alcoholic?

Fresh apple cider doesn’t contain alcohol. It’s possible for unpasteurized cider to ferment over time and become alcoholic, creating hard apple cider or apple cider vinegar. If you don’t want your cider to become alcoholic, it’s best to drink it within two weeks of making it.

Should You Drink Apple Cider Hot or Cold?

There’s no right or wrong way to drink apple cider, and it can be served either hot or cold. If you decide to warm your cider up before serving it, try adding a clove or stick of cinnamon to accentuate its fall flavors!

Apple Cider vs Apple Juice

Many people use the terms apple cider and apple juice interchangeably, but there are slight differences between the two. Both are made by pressing ripe apples into an unfiltered juice, but the key difference comes in the filtration and bottling process.

Apple juice is always filtered to remove pulp and sediment from the raw juice, whereas some apple ciders are served straight with pulp and sediment. As a result, apple juice is typically clear while apple cider may appear cloudy and opaque.

Also, apple juice is heated before bottling, which changes its flavor, texture, and color. This also helps to lengthen its shelf life, making it less perishable than apple cider.

How to Make Apple Cider from Apple Juice

While you can’t turn apple juice back into apple cider, it’s possible to add the right ingredients to mimic the taste. For example, if you warm apple juice on the stove for about 30 minutes with some additional spices like cinnamon and clove, you’ll get a beverage that tastes similar to its apple-based counterpart.

Best Apples for Cider

When choosing what kind of apple you’ll use to make apple cider, it’s important to know how you’d like your cider to taste. Traditional apple cider is sweet, but some prefer their apple cider to be on the acidic side. Below, we’ll investigate which apples are best for the different types of cider you might prefer.

Traditional Apple Cider Apples

If you’re looking to make a traditional apple cider, consider using the following apples:

• Fuji
• Gala
• Pink Lady
• Jonagold

Acidic Apple Cider Apples

If you’d rather have a more acidic or sharp-tasting cider, these apples may fit your preferences:

• McIntosh
• Cortland
• Granny Smith

No matter what type of cider you decide to make, you’ll want to incorporate a variety of apples. This helps to achieve depth of flavor as well as various notes of bitter, sweet, sharp, and tangy tastes.

How Is Apple Cider Made?

To make a traditional apple cider, follow the steps below. Make your cider within a few days of picking your apples so they stay fresh.

1. Wash: For food safety reasons, wash the apples thoroughly.
2. Mash apples: Once they’ve been washed, mash and grind the apples until they reach the consistency of applesauce. You can leave the skin, core, and stems on during this process, but you may need to filter out large pieces of sediment later if you do.
3. Press apples: After mashing the apples into a pulp, press them. This can be done using a manual press for smaller portions, or with a hydraulic press if you’re making apple cider in bulk.
4. Filter pulp: The juice that you extract from the pulp will contain tiny bits of pulp and sediment, which can be filtered out if you prefer. If not, you can drink it as is.
5. Customize: Add your preferred sweeteners and spices to the drink. If you’d prefer to drink it straight, that’s fine as well.

Hot Apple Cider Recipe

While apple cider made from freshly picked apples is great on its own, adding spices and additional sweeteners can enhance the flavor. We’ve provided a spiced apple cider recipe so that you can add a splash of flavor to your next batch.

• 6 to 10 apples
• 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar
• 4 Tbsp. cinnamon
• 4 Tbsp. Allspice

Instructions for Making Apple Cider

1. Cut apples: Quarter the apples and cover them with water in a large pot.
2. Add spices: Wrap your spices in cheesecloth. Add them, along with the sugar, into the pot.
3. Boil: Using high heat, boil the apples for 1 hour, then simmer for 2 hours.
4. Remove spices: Once they’ve been boiled, remove the spices.
5. Mash apples: After removing the spices, mash the apples and strain them into another container.

You can also use a number of other flavorings to add a twist to your apple cider recipe, such as spiking it with rum or vodka, adding in cranberry juice to make cranberry apple cider, or including some caramel syrup for caramel apple cider. Regardless of whether you like your apple cider hot or cold, filtered or with pulp, or with or without additional flavorings, it’s a classic autumn beverage that is an excellent addition to your menu.