Friday, March 07, 2008

Scrumpy: Get it down yer throat

Our American friends will not be familiar with the pleasures of cider. I was always terribly confused in American bars and restaurants. When you order a cider, they bring you a glass of apple juice.

Cider is a happy thing in British Columbia. I always liked Okanagan Dry. But I've always disapproved of "pear cider", a wicked post-Vatican II innovation if ever I saw one.

I've discovered


A pint bottle for less than a pound fifty and it's still made in England, since 1727.

My aunt said it used to be sold in stoneware bottles, but that's just one more thing to look forward to at the Restoration of All Good Things.

Another good thing in England: you can buy it, as you can all hoochies, at the corner shop. No government liquor stores, with inconvenient opening hours here.

5 comments:

Anagnostis said...

Ooooh arrr!

One slight refinement to your title, if I may be so bold:

- it's "Get it down your neck".

Mark S. Abeln said...

I call it "hard cider", and the distilled stuff "applejack". The latter inflames the brain.

Jeremy said...

I've discovered something new and wonderful in the past two days following major snow storms: cider never tastes so good as when you SKI through the streets of a major city and along its canal to a pub in order to drink some.

It is, truly, a drink for all seasons and I'll look for Scrumpy Jack here in Ottawa.

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

Now Jeremy, there's the quintessential Canadian experience. Would that our country were all skiing down the street and going to the pub.

Jeremy said...

Aye -- rather than skating on thin ice and going to Hell.