[Photograph: The Paupered Chef] Serious Eats contributors Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer explain how they made hard cider on the cheap over at The Paupered Chef. They made four batches using two kinds of apple cider and yeast, and found that Whole Foods' apple cider was great for making easy, cheap hard cider: "It's cheap ($6.99), comes in perfectly sized bottles for fermenting, and makes a balanced, refreshing beverage in about 7 to 10 days." Start a batch soon and you'll have a great beverage for Thanksgiving. Related Snapshots from the UK: Brothers Toffee Apple Cider, a Caramel Apple-Flavored Beverage How to Make Apple Cider Hard Ciders at Thanksgiving, So Underrated...
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Longtime Green City Market veteran fruit slinger Peter Klein, of Seedling Orchard in South Haven, Michigan, unveiled a hard cider a few weeks ago here in Chicago. Like me, he's a huge fan of Normandy ciders and was inspired by the tipple to make his own. All apples for Klein's cider are hand-picked and pressed on a hydraulic press "soft" cider mill on his property. Seedling's hard cider is made from a mix that is heavy on tarter varieties and a fall blend of apples with good sugar content. He says, "Historically, I think we would like even more tart and tannic apples in the mix; but we don't grow these yet." Klein adds, "If we have a good year,...
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Photograph from Savvy Housekeeping If you really like apple cider (the alcoholic kind, that is), Savvy Housekeeping shares a tutorial for how to make apple cider at home. Apple juice, brown sugar, wine yeast, beer-making equipment, and a few weeks of patience will reward you with 42 bottles of apple cider. Related Bathtub Gin and Other DIY Alcohols Make Your Own Wine at Home How to Make a Watermelon Keg...
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Gourmet's Dara Moskowitz Grundahl was on a long family road trip, stopped randomly at an apple-themed souvenir store just to get out of the car with her baby, and ended up making her wine discovery of 2007. She describes ÆppelTreow Winery's Pommeaux dessert wine as having "the fragrance of a hundred apple trees in bloom, and more," and ended up buying every last bottle they had in stock! They apparently only produce 2,000 cases total of all their products a year, and only sell in a limited amount of stores in the Kenosha, Milwaukee, and Chicago areas, so you'll have to drop them a line about buying it direct from the source, like I'm about to do....
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