Cider - It's Not Just for the Founding Fathers Anymore

Forget tea parties. Hard cider is a truer revolutionary drink. Who knew?

Slate magazine has an interesting piece on the resurgence of hard cider in the colonies. What was once a patriot's favorite tankard fell out of favor thanks to an upsurge in beer drinking and prohibition.

Beer makers may adorn their bottles with ale-swilling patriots, and aristocrats like Thomas Jefferson may have enjoyed imported wine. But cider was the drink of the people, from farmers to fighting men, and deservedly so. Good cider is light but not boring, complex but not dominating, satisfying but not sating. Let's get back to our roots...

During the 18th century, Americans realized that the prolific, hardy apple tree-which arrived from England in 1623-offered a solution to their drinking dilemma. In 1767, the average Massachusetts resident drank 35 gallons of cider. (That includes children, who sipped a slightly weaker version called ciderkin.) John Adams drank a tankard of cider nearly every morning of his life. Cider was supplied to our nascent army and is credited with helping our soldiers defeat the British (hooray!) and conquer the Indians (oops). By the end of the century, apple orchards blanketed the American landscape.

In case you didn't know it, we have a local cider outfit just down the road. Sutliff Cider Company makes a tasty, fizzy hard cider from locally grown apples that's crisp and not over-sweet like a lot of the commercial cider available in the U.S.

I picked up a bottle at Hy-Vee and thoroughly enjoyed it. And I had no idea I was such a patriot.