Ciderhouse News - March 2014

March is traditionally the month when cidermakers get all twitchy and restless ahead of the new cider-selling season. Signs of Spring in the garden signal the return of migratory cider drinkers, heralded by the cheep and chirp of e-mail requests for our new-season ciders and perries. Cider twitchers need wait only a few days more for the official start of the Spring cider season. March 12th to be precise, because that's the opening afternoon of the 2014 Leicester CAMRA Beer Festival, a festival renowned for it's ciders and perries. And beers.

News just in of a few micro-changes to the cider bar listing, so here they are:

In: Ross Perry, Wilcox Cider

Out: Barbourne Perry, Swallowfield Cider

Shaken All About: Green Valley Rum Cask is now Farmhouse Medium, the Gwatkin cider is a single variety Stoke Red, and the Once Upon a Tree cider is their Tumpy Ground.

In other news, our 2012 Rockingham Forest Sloe Gin was awarded 'Null Points' in the Great Easton Sloe Gin (& others) competition. The competition, a revival of long-standing village event, was held at the recently revived and re-opened Sun Inn. The judges had a tough job, with something like 30 entries to sip their way through, including the 'other' class which was won by a very moreish Marmalade concoction which we're definitely going to try ourselves. A bottle of our new season Rockingham Forest Slider was also available for tasting, which if we're honest was a good deal better than our Sloe Gin! Must try harder next year.

...and finally. Here's a recipe that's as easy to make as opening a Dairylea Cheese Triangle and spreading it on a piece of white-sliced.

Take 1 Juicy fridge-ripened Camembert, make a few gouges on the surface and insert thin slivers of garlic. Pour on some cider, we used some delicious Dunkertons Breakwell's Seedling, or if feeling particularly indulgent, Cider Brandy. Pop the lid on and bake until gooey and dippable. Crusty bread for dipping is all that's required.

Mincing About in the Kitchen

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in the Welland Valley. Due in large part to the good folk of Rockingham Castle, who've jumped the gun somewhat and decked their expansive halls with many-a bough of holly. A little early you might think, but it's all part of their annual Victorian Christmas event, and for us humble flood-plane dwellers, a good opportunity for a nosey around the 'Big House' on the hill.

Here at Rockingham Forest Cider HQ, I'll be sticking rigidly with time-honoured tradition. No trees will be erected, Tinsel hung, or Baubles polished, until I'm jolly well told to by 'She Who Must Be Obeyed At Christmas... and beyond'. This is Karens time, and she'll be running our 'Christmas Season' with military precision, and dishing out military-style punishment to those that step out of line. I made the mistake of using my initiative one Christmas. It won't happen again!

That's not to say that the Christmas spirit is entirely absent. Regular readers will know that the Christmas Pudding has already been cooked, and is now being force fed regular tots of weapons-grade Calvados. The Christmas Cake has also now been baked, and will meet a similar boozy fate between now and the big day. I've also made a small experimental batch of Rockingham Forest Slider Mincemeat, in a vain attempt to feed the voracious appetite of 'She Who Can't Stop Baking Mince Pies'. There's much more to this super-rich mincemeat that the Slider though, so for adventurous bakers, here's the recipe :

200ml Slider (or a Sweetish Cider)

200g Soft Dark Brown Sugar

200g Currants

200g Raisins

750g Cooking Apples (Peeled, Cored, Chopped quite finely)

60g Dried Figs, Dates, or Prunes (I used Prunes, you decide)

60g Nuts (I used Walnuts)

60g Damsons (or Plums)

Grated Zest and Juice of 1/2 Lemon

1/2 tsp Mixed Spice

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

A good Tot of Cider Brandy or Calvados

Heat the Slider and Sugar gently in a pan until the sugar has melted. Add everything else, having chopped anything big into a smallish dice. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for half an hour. Spoon into sterilised jars, and pour a little brandy on the top to help preserve the Mincemeat before sealing. Ideally, store for a couple of weeks to mature before use, but to be honest, we'll be making some pies with it tomorrow...

Spending time in the cosy comfort of the kitchen has made me realise just how lucky we've been with the cidermaking this year. I'm giving thanks on an hourly basis to whichever deity it was that decided 2010 would be an 'off' year for Vilberie cider apples. Vilberie are a very late variety, not ready to be pressed until well into December. Now we'll do whatever it takes to fill the fermenters, but cidermaking in December is just a squeeze too far for me. To those friends and colleagues of ours still toiling over Mill & Press in icy Winter conditions, I salute you.... with a steaming mug of tea and a nice warm Mince Pie. Cheers!

Red Lion Beer & Cider Festival

The bar at the Red Lion in Middleton, is reaching a kind of critical beer-mass ahead of this weekends Beer & Cider Festival (3rd-5th Sept). Handpumps are at a premium, so there will also be a neat pile of casks, and a selection of boxes to help make up the numbers. We've delivered the last of the Red Kite Yarlington Mill and Welland Valley Festival Special ciders, as well as Blakeney Red and Green Horse perrys. The weather is set fare, and resident Tattooed Love God Neil has been tasked with erecting the canvas ready for tomorrows Live Music and Saturday Barn Dance. I may also have a bottle of our new-season Slider available for tasting. Stop me and try one...

Ciderhouse News - Welland Valley Beer Fest #2

Leicestershire apple enthusiast Melanie Wilson paid us a visit today. Mel is the brains behind the terrific UK Fruit Scion Wood Exchange, an online forum for 'people with fruit tree wood, you'd like to get to know better'. Actually, it's a place for the discussion of fruit tree grafting and propagation, and perhaps more crucially, for the free exchange of scion wood to help achieve this purpose. Mel's interest in our little cidermaking enterprise stems from the fact that she'll soon have more apples than she knows what to do with. All this grafting has a purpose you see, and apple pies alone can't deal with the glut of fruit she's expecting from her orchard in the near future.

Mel's visit was as good an excuse as any to crack open a few vats of Cider, and most excitingly (for me at least!) the chance to sample our first attempt at a traditional Perry. I must admit, I've been avoiding this for quite some time now. More than a little luck, magic and superstition surrounds the making of perry, and I've been working on the premise that the less I even think about 'the vat with no name', the less there is that can go wrong with it. However, there comes a time when denial is simply not an option, and the procrastination has to end. In this particular case, the fact that we're supposed to be selling it in less than a week's time has certainly forced my hand.

So, the verdict. Well, it's all good news in the ciderhouse today. The perry is in fine-fettle, rich, fruity, aromatic, a little tannin remains on the side of the tongue, but all in all, a very nice perry indeed and certainly ready to drink. What a relief! Only seven sleepless nights to go...

The jury is out on the Rockingham Forest Cider, I'll need to sample a bit more before I decide which vat to go for, but the other good-news story from the ciderhouse is the Sulgrave Orchard Slider which we had a sneaky sip of. I'll be bottling this up over the weekend, with full tasting notes, and on-the-spot reaction from the Red Lion staff and regulars. Stay tuned.

Sulgrave Orchard Slider

The making of Slider fits nicely into the natural order of the cidermaking year. The Sloe Gin we made in November is now ready to decant, filter, and bottle-up; and by a happy coincidence the new-season cider is ready to receive the gin-soaked sloes.

Slider is a longer, less potent version of the many spirit-based fruity concoctions which are traditionally made throughout Europe. The sloes from a batch of Sloe Gin are given a second life, re-used to flavour a similar batch of cider. We made a Slider last season, but got the timing slightly wrong, meaning there was only a limited amount of our own cider available for the experiment. Nevertheless, what we did manage to make came out very well indeed, so this year we've decided to do things properly.

The cider we've used is our Sulgrave Orchard Cider, fruity and sharp which should take the herbal richness of the sloes well. We've made up a gallon this time, so the flavour will probably be less pronounced, but we hope that a longer maturing time will help draw out more of the sloe character. The Slider will be under airlock throughout the 2 or 3 months of maturation, so there should be no chance of the whole experiment becoming explosive through fermentation!

The Slider should be ready in time for the Welland Valley Beer Festival in June. It's a strictly non-commercial experiment so if you see me at the festival do ask for a sample, I'll be carrying a bottle or two for the purpose.

As you can see, Dolly insisted on getting into this picture. I think the hens were very disappointed that the sloes didn't come their way. Patience girls, your time will come...

Rockingham Forest Slider

With Christmas pretty much put to bed for another year, this weekend had been earmarked for work in the garden. Our modestly sized vegetable plots are now almost empty of produce, so I spent most of the day picking up feed-bags of rotted horse manure from a stables across the valley in Great Easton. Very satisfying work, but bloody hard going, and not helped by the chilly gales whipping down the valley today. Whilst shovelling the aromatic muck onto the bare earth my mind was firmly on the reward of a warming alcoholic drink and a welcome 'feet-up' with a Christmas film or two. The time seemed right to see how our little Slider experiment had turned out.

The Sloes have done their job and can finally be consigned to the compost bin. We tried the Rockingham Forest Slider first, which had emerged a lovely pale pink, with an aroma very similar to that of Sloe Gin itself. The taste is basically that of a much lighter Sloe Gin, with a little added sharpness from the cider, and very easy-drinking. If you like Sloe Gin, you'll love this 'longer' version, which slips down rather too much like a soft drink for comfort. The Tillington Hills Slider was slightly sweeter, and equally easy-drinking, but had a slightly bitter aftertaste. This wasn't exactly unpleasant, and perhaps even added a certain 'grown-up' edge to the drink. All in all a very successful bit of alchemy, and definitely worth repeating with a few tweaks next year.

Drinking the Slider's on such a miserable day weather wise, got me thinking about hot drinks. The slightly herbal flavours of the Slider struck me as being ideal for the mulling process, so as a final experiment we microwaved up a mug of the Tillington Hills Slider until hot and steamy. This was a huge success and even got the thumbs up from Karen, who isn't too keen on Gin, and was a reluctant taster of the two Sliders to begin with. Even without any added spices (which I'm sure would improve the flavour still more) the hot Slider was equal to any Gluhwein I've tried, and I feel this is probably the ultimate expression of this winning combination. What could be more apt at this time of year than a mug of hot mulled Slider, perhaps even as the perfect accompaniment to a Winter Wassail should you be lucky enough to attend one.

If you would like to try a commercial version of Slider, there is one available from the Liquer makers Bramley & Gage, though they are currently out of stock until the end of January.

Sloe Food

Today was the traditional pre-Christmas 'Sloe Gin Bottling Day', and also our first attempt at making it's somewhat rarer relation, Slider. I'm guessing that not many people know what Slider actually is, and to be honest I'm not 100% sure myself.

Our interpretation of this alcoholic by-product of Sloe Gin making, is to take the gin-soaked Sloes, and give them a second extended soaking in the last bottle of our 2006 cider. The idea being that all that gin which has migrated into the sloes needs to be coaxed back out again, ideally along with a little 'essence of Sloe'. We've also made up one jar with a bottle of the Co-op's pretty decent tasting Tillington Hills Dry Cider, though in hindsight what I perhaps should have done was add the sloes to a demijohn of this year's maturing cider, ideally under airlock. I'm a little bit concerned about any potential re-fermentation or bacterial infection, which could lead to exploding Kilner Jars, so as a precaution I've moved the whole experiment out into the potting shed, and I'll probably not leave things 'maturing' for too long.

The Sloe Gin has turned out to be very moreish, so I'm really looking forward to the results of this (strictly non-commercial) little experiment, and will post the results here when we get to try the Slider out.