Apple cider drink article is about the alcoholic beverage. For the non-alcoholic beverage, see Apple cider. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
The juice of most varieties of apple, including crab apples, can be used to make cider, but cider apples are best. The addition of sugar or extra fruit before a second fermentation increases the ethanol content of the resulting beverage. 10 times the amount of sugar in lager or ale. Perry is a similar product to cider made from fermented pear juice. When distilled, cider turns into fruit brandy.
This section needs additional citations for verification. Ciders can be classified from dry to sweet. Their appearance ranges from cloudy with sediment to completely clear, and their colour ranges from almost colourless to amber to brown. The variations in clarity and colour are mostly due to filtering between pressing and fermentation. Modern, mass-produced ciders closely resemble sparkling wine in appearance.
More traditional brands tend to be darker and cloudier. They are often stronger than the mass-produced varieties and taste more strongly of apples. Almost colourless, white cider has the same apple juice content as conventional cider but is harder to create because the cider maker has to blend various apples to create a clearer liquid. The first recorded reference to cider dates back to Julius Caesar’s first attempt to invade Britain in 55 BCE where he found the native Celts fermenting crabapples. He would take the discovery back through continental Europe with his retreating troops. In the cider market, ciders can be broken down into two main styles, standard and specialty.