2009 - Mulling It Over

2009, a fairly mixed-bag of a year for most people I guess, us included. It's been a difficult year for everyone, and for all kinds of reasons, but at least our cidermaking has continued to go from strength to strength, and provided us with some memorable occasions along the way. On balance we can look back on the year with a measure of satisfaction, and a little sigh of relief. We seem to have weathered the storms reasonably well, and things could certainly have been a lot worse!

So with a new decade only a few hours away, I think a celebration is in order. We'll be seeing in the New Year in our local the Red Lion, but before that it's as good an occasion as any to break out the spices and Mull up a warming treat. The very last knockings of our Sulgrave Orchard Cider will make the fruity base to our Rockingham Forest Wassail Cup, along with a few spicy store-cupboard favourites. The cider we're using is very dry and quite sharp, so adjust the sweetening to suit the cider you're using and to your own taste. For every litre of dry cider we'll be adding:

2 or 3 dessert spoons of Honey

2 tbsp Calvados (or any other Brandy/Rum)

A good tsp each of Cinnamon Bark, Cloves, and Allspice (crushed)

A short grating of Nutmeg

Peel from half a Lemon

A few Chilli Flakes (optional)

Heat through and simmer very gently for a few minutes, then strain into a flask and surprise your friends and neighbours.

Wishing all our readers a very Happy New Year

Wine Snobs Come Out Fighting

In what I'm assuming to be a blatant and savage riposte to my Six Ciders For Christmas Day selection, upmarket stick-in-the-mud wine magazine Decanter have only gone and pinched the idea and issued their own recommendations for the big day. Predictably it's wine, wine, wine all the way, with beer and cider well and truly off the radar. You can view the tawdry article here.

Well, I could whine on about it some more, but since plagiarism is surely the sincerest form of flattery I'll let them have their moment of glory. A small plug for our blog wouldn't have hurt though!... In the spirit of goodwill I'll mention that a Calvados does make it onto their Top 10 Spirits for Christmas list. Meantime, I'll be keeping a very close eye on those Gout-riddled Decanter Johnnys. All work on this blog is copyright. Even the rubbish stuff...

Merry Christmas to all our readers and drinkers.

Christmas Pudding

The usual orderly approach to Christmas Day has been anything but orderly this year. The late-late cidermaking hasn't helped, neither has an untimely flurry of real work following a Summer of bone-idleness. Suffice to say that the Christmas spirit has arrived very late this year...

Things are really kicking off now, which is just as well since it's less than a week before the big day! The tree is up, there's snow on the ground, and I've finally got round to making the Christmas Cake and Pudding.

Ho, Ho, Ho I hear you say, far too late to mature properly for Christmas Day. Stir-up Sunday, the traditional day to make your Christmas Pudding, came and went on the 22nd of November. Ha, Ha, Ha, I reply, it's not a problem when you're still eating last year's cake, and the pudding recipe I've used is a cross between a plum pudding and a steamed sponge cake. No maturing necessary, and I give you the recipe here because it's never too late to steam-up your kitchen for Christmas.

I've taken inspiration for the pudding from the accurately named 'Farmhouse Cookery', a veritable treasure trove of Irish recipes, produced by the lovely ladies of the Ballylennon Presbyterian Church, County Donegal. A full three quarters of this book is devoted to baking, which is as it should be. Play to your strengths that's what I say... So a tip of the hat to Anna McKean of Rateen, St Johnston whose recipe I almost followed to the letter.

For a medium sized pud, beat together 110g Butter and the same of Soft Brown Sugar until fluffy, or your arm succumbs to tennis-elbow. Add One and a Half Eggs, 40g Plain Flour, 25g Chopped Almonds, 110g Brown Breadcrumbs, a tsp of Mixed Spice, and a Quarter tsp of Baking Powder. Stir around a bit then add 350g Mixed Fruit which includes mixed peel, along with a peeled, cored and diced Cooking Apple. Things will have got pretty dry by now, so add the juice and grated rind of Half a Lemon, along with 2-4 tbsp of Sweet Cider, I used the same Henny's 2008 Vintage Cider which I recommended for the Cheese Board. Stir very well and transfer to a well buttered pudding bowl. The pud will rise by an inch or so, so cover with foil tied in such a way as to allow a little expansion, and steam for 3 Irish Hours (maybe a little less, maybe a little more, check with a skewer to see whether it's cooked through). When it's done, allow to cool a little, then pierce all over with a skewer and drizzle as much Cider Brandy or Calvados into the pud as you feel necessary. Quite a lot in our case!

Being made with butter rather than suet, this pudding will probably not keep so well as a more traditional, heavy plum pudding, though the Brandy should help.

Drink Cider for Conservation

Here's a little snippet of news which caught my eye from The Times today. Apparently, Naturalists from Butterfly Conservation, in partnership with the mighty National Trust, want us all to drink more cider...

Hmm! Let's dig a little bit deeper into this one.

The truth of the story is less about giving the green light to bacchanalian excess, and more the plight of a rather rare little Moth which happens to have a strong affinity with Mistletoe. The Mistletoe Marble Moth (Celypha woodiana) is struggling to find enough of it's favourite mealtime delicacy owing to a decline in Mistletoe, which in turn is due to our sharply declining orchard stock. I think you may be able to see the connection now.

Journalistic shorthand leads to the conclusion that more cider simply must be consumed if we stand any chance of saving these poor critters. I'll drink to that, and so of course should you.

Having read the news feature again, I still can't see where Naturalists have made any specific mention of cider, instead they seem to be urging us to support British apple growers. It's a minor technicality, the result is the same whichever way you get your 'English Apple-a-Day'. A greater appreciation, and less destruction of old orchards, Mistletoe galore, and happy, happy Moths.

The image accompanying this post has been kindly made available by oldbilluk under a Creative Commons licence. Thanks Bill.

Six Ciders for Christmas Day - Brandy, No Cigar

And so we come to the last knockings of what has been a long and indulgent day. Snuggled up in front of a crackling gas fire, stuffed to the gunnel's with rich Christmas Fayre (ahem!), fit for nowt but a family film of your choice or the welcome oblivion of an afternoon nap. At this stage of the day you're not likely to have room for another cider, so my final choice for the day is a generous schooner of Julian Temperley's finest Cider Brandy.

Somerset Cider Brandy is a real home-produced treat, created from the distillation of fine Somerset cider at Burrow Hill in deepest Somerset. When Julian Temperley wrestled a licence to distill from a highly reticent HM Customs in 1989, the scene was set for the recreation of a style of Brandy which had all but faded from memory in this country. The bottlings which have been released up to now have been exceptionally well received, and as time has crept by, older and more mature Brandies have been released, including most recently, the stunning 15 year old Somerset Alchemy.

For preference I favour the 5 year old brandy, less fiery than the youthful 3 year old, but retaining more appley flavour than the smoother 10 year old bottling. Unfortunately, we don't have any of the sublime 5 year old to hand, so we'll have to slum it with a limited release 10 year old Single Cask Somerset Royal Cider Brandy. This version has a slightly higher alcohol level at 45.8%, and was matured in new Limousin Oak which will probably give creamy vanilla notes in the flavour.

If you can't get hold of a bottle of Somerset's finest, I'd also recommend the much easier to find Sainsbury's Calvados Pays d'Auge XO. This 12 year old spirit is deep golden in colour, slightly medicinal on the nose, but beautifully smooth on the tongue. There's rosy apple, vanilla, spiciness, and a Rum-like demerara sugariness. A great way to end the day, and if you can find a little more room, pair these two with a generous slice of Christmas Cake. If you can't, perhaps the cake itself would appreciate a drop or two!