Photo: Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photos Division

Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, Guest Contributor
Slow Food Boston

Used to be that if you wanted to drink before noon without seeming degenerate, you had to host a brunch and stir up pitchers of Bloody Marys or Mimosas. But now there’s another option, one with a decidedly more wholesome aura. It’s easygoing, working just as well with a stack of flapjacks, syrup and sausage or Eggs Benedict as it does slugged straight up and in bed. Yep, we’re talking about America’s most traditional tipple: hard cider.

Spring is the perfect time to inaugurate your new wake-up juice. Craft cider is fermented during the long, dark nights of winter and is ready for consumption right about now. There’s an ABV (alcohol-by-volume) for every palate. Lightweights can toss back a couple glasses of bubbly French cidre at 3% AVB; more practiced drinkers can down the sturdier English and New England-style ciders at 6-8% and the hardcore can quaff apple ice wine (called ice cider or cidre de glace by our friends to the North) at 7-13%.

Cider ruled the land for over 200 years. The Pilgrims came bearing kegs, but hops refused to grow in New England, and brewing was way complicated for the average homesteader. (Starting with the terminology: Grist? Wort?? Sparge??? Lauter????) Desperate for booze, the Colonists planted apple trees, which could be converted to ethanol as easy as 1) collect fallen fruit, 2) crush 3) let fester. Johnny Appleseed (b. 1744, Leominster, MA) promulgated the joyous tidings far and wide, working tirelessly to ensure that no one in the young nation should be without the means to get hammered.

He succeeded. By the end of the 1700s, American orchards were sloshing out a daily pint for every man, woman and child over five. But then came the arrival of skilled German brewmeisters in the Midwest, changes in production and distribution that favored the urban brewery, and the temperance movement—complete with orchard-razing wackos. By 1917, cider was so disgraced that even the staid New York Times was denouncing it as “the devil’s brew”, “an intoxicant prolific of assault and battery and sometimes inciting to murder.”

It’s time to rescue our native libation from ignominy! Since the 1990s, there has been a slow but steady hard cider revival afoot. Out West, Washington cideries lead the charge. In the East, they abound in Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Below is a list of five local hard cider producers and one apple ice wine producer. Their quaffs can be found onsite and in selected bars, restaurants and retailers (check their websites for which).

Massachusetts Cideries

Furnacebrook Winery, Richmond. Two styles: Johnny Mash, a crisp everyday cider made from MacIntosh and Northern Spy and aged in oak, and French Cidre, elegant and dry.

Headwater Cider, Hawley. First press coming online in winter 2011 with a slow-fermented “olden times” dry, still cider made from organic Cortland, MacIntosh and Empire. They don’t have a website yet, but eager beavers (and any bottlers and distributors!) can contact owner Peter Mitchell (lotic@juno.com).

Obadiah McIntyre Farm Winery, Charlton. Nate’s Hard Cider, made with their own apples, sweetened with fresh cider and carbonated, as well as two carbonated cider/berry combinations.

Russell Orchards, Ipswich. Several different styles of cider, ranging from a traditional dry New England cider, a slightly sweet drinking cider, a sweet dessert cider, sparkling champagne-style cider and perry (pear cider).

West County Cider, Colrain. Varietal ciders from a single type of heirloom apple including Pippin, Ashmead’s Kernel, Kingston Black, Reine de Pomme, Baldwin, Roxbury Russet, MacIntosh and a mixed cider. Collect them all!

Massachusetts Apple Ice Winery

Still River Winery, Harvard. Apfel Eis’s deep, complex flavor and higher alcohol content is achieved by cooling just-pressed cider from local apples and separating out ice crystals.

Need further encouragement to decant before noon? The custom has a distinguished pedigree. John Adams started every day with a large tankard of fermented apple beverage. Here he is to wife Abigail on the disgusting hot, black liquid he was served for breakfast in Philly when drafting the constitution: “What I would give for some of your cider!”

PS Email me (anastaciamdes@gmail.com) or leave a note in comments if you’d be up for attending a Massachusetts hard cider tasting sometime.