The History and Virtues of Cyder

This book describes the rise and fall of cyder, and sets out in practical detail the traditional techniques for making it. We are all familiar with pasteurized, bland and carbon-dioxide-injected cider, but cyder is a living wine of some subtlety, matured in cask and bottle in the manner of champagne. Cyder disappeared from England in the nineteenth century, yet at its height in the seventeenth century cyder was often preferred to good French white wine and there was much discussion on how cyder should best be made. Today cyder is having a renaissance. The reader is taken through all the necessary stages from planting the tree, gathering the fruit, pressing and fermentation to laying down a vintage. The book also includes cyder food and drink recipes for when you have made your cyder.