Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-30
CIDER IN GREATBRITAIN
DOES NOT OCCUPY ITS FORMER
POSITION AS A BEVERAGE.
The Drink Mentioned by st. Augustine
Some of the More Celebrated
Apples Used in Its Making.
From the London Globe.

From the London Globe.
Cider does not occupy the position in this
country as beverage which II ought to
do. There is no reason why. with due at.
tention TO both the selection and grating
of suitable apple growths and to the treat
ment of the expressed juice. cider should
not become the wine of the country" At
present cider is a name which covers a
strange variety of drinks. The purchaser
cannot tell what he is likely to get for his
money. He may, for example, find him.
self drinking n beverage containing an ex-
cessive amount of sugar. or one with hardly
any. What is BADLY wanted in England Is
assiduous cultivation of the right kinds Of
apples-the best cider apples are often quito
unit for eating-the greatest care and
cleanliness in the manufacture of the drink
and, hnally, the proper labelling and de-
scrioing OF the result. There should be
brands OF cider as there are of wine; and
the purchaser should especially be able to
obtain cider which is guaranteed sweet or
dry, according to the proportion of sugar it
contains. For with drinks as with food,
what Is good and wholesome for a man in
one physical state is sheer poison for his
neighbor in another.
Necessity for Care
The necessity for care in the selection and
grating of trees for the production OF apple
wine has of course. been the subject Of
much shedding of ink. John Philips. in his
well-known old poem "Cyder' gives
most elaborate counsels to the choice
not only of suitable trees. but also of suit
able ground for the orchard. and as to the
art and practice of grating, looping, and
in-eyefng." ln-eyeing is what We now
call budding or in-grafting-i.e., the inser-
ton of a bud of tree under the bark of
that of different stock. for the purpose OF
producing blend of flowers or fruit. Phil
Fps describes how
The native verjuce Of the crab deriv'd
Thro' tn intxd draft grateful mixture forms
or tart ana sweet whatever be the cause,
This doubtful progeny by incest tastes
Expected best acceptance finds and pays
Largest revenues to the orchat-lord.
Grating is the usual method of propaga-
ton of fruit trees in the west.
The same versifier mentions many of the
best cider apples, some of which are prob
ably now known by other names. He men,
tons the Rippin, the Moyle-
OF sweetest honey'd taste, the fair Permsin;
Temper'd like contest nymph. with red and
white;
the Ottley-a Shropshire growth, the Eliot.
John-Apple, Harvey. Cooling, Pomeroy
and others. The John-Apple. or apple-john,
as it was often called. was remarkable
when quite ripe for its withered skin. The
name has been familariztd by Shake
speare's allusion to it in the scene at the
Bears Head where the drawer tells how
the prince once set a DISH OF I'VE dpple>
johns before Sir John Falstaff, and pull
ing off his hat. said: L will now take my
leave of these six dry, round. old withered
knights "a remark which much incensed
Sir John.
Cooling or Goblin is name which seems
always to have been applied to hard
kind of apple not fit to be eaten uncooked.
and consequently it came to be given to
any unrpe apple. Malvolio. for instance,
in Twelfth Night" says: LAS a squash is
before it's pescod or cooling when tbs
almost an apple" And so any green apple
which required to be cooked, to be boiled
or stewed or "coddled" before it could be
eaten, was often called Goblin. Hot cod
hngs," that is, hot roasted apples, used to
be one of the familiar cries of old London.
A song which was popular early in the last
century described how
A little old woman, her living she got.
By selling hot codlings, hot hot, hot.
Pippin is a name of general applica-
ton, but to Philips 1t evidently meant a
particular variety. The other kinds of ap-
Piles which he mentions obviously derived
their names from those of persons. perhaps
famous growers or grafters
Best of All Apples.
AT the head of all his cider apples Philips
places the Redstreak; and he rhapsodizes
after the fashion of his age In smoothly
flowing, but quite uninspired verse over
the .'nectareous juice of the Reds;reak
which he quaffs he chants the praises
of the ''pulpous fruit with gold irradiate"
In the second book of his poem Philips de-
scribes the pressing of the apples and the
other processes of cider manufacture and is
eloquent on the Importance of cleanliness
and the selection of sound fruit-points the
Importance of which, If some observers are
to be believed is not sufficiently realized by
some present-day manufacturers of apple
wine
i- oil how
tine mentions it, and describes il as more
delicious than any kind of wine; which
would seem to betoken a considerable de-
gree of art ana care in its preparation. In
this country it has been made for many
centuries; but what is exactly meant by
cider" is sometimes a little uncertain, for
the name was occasionally applied to fer
mented drinks produced from fruit other
than apples. A writer of 1898 remarks that
"hony cometh of floures, cidre of frute, and
ale of corne." There were chronological
reasons, too, for the application of the name
to any Intoxicating liquor strong drink.
This was a frequent medieval use. In a
familiar verse in the Book of Proverbs, for
example, where the authorized version says,
Give strong drink unto him that is ready
to PERISH Wiclifs translation has
''sidur" for the strong drink" Another
ecclesiastic of the fifteenth century speaks
of "Saynt John Baytyst. which etc never
fieshe, dranke no wyne, nor cydre."
Used for Centuries.
But apart from this wider of the
term. cider, We now know it, the fer
mented juice of apples. has been made and
drunk in England for centuries. 1t figures
in chronicle and story. in history and f1c-
ton. King John is said to have fastened
his miserable end by surfeiting himself
with peaches and drinking new cider when
he was already suffering from fever. In
Ffelding's day drinkers not content
with cider neat, but liked to increase Its
power by the addition of spirits
"a mixture known colloGually as cider
and" In Joseph Andrews a party of
men are represented as ''smoaking their
pipes over some Cyder-and."
The beverage is made in many parts of
England, but chiefly in the western coun-
tries; and of the various alternating dis
tricts Worcestershire and Herefordshire
bear the palm. The climate and soil of these
counties and of Devonshire no doubt
specially favorable to the growth of suit
able fruit; but there is no reason why. with
due care in industry, alternating should
not be made profitable in other parts of the