Cider
Cider is an ancient beverage. No-one knows when or where it was first made, because the native distribution of its principal component, the apple, is so widespread, from the Near East to Northwestern Europe. In the cider market, ciders can be broken down into two main styles, standard and specialty. The first group consists of modern ciders and heritage ciders. Modern ciders are produced from culinary apples such as Gala. Heritage ciders are produced from heritage, cider specific, crab or wild apples, like Golden Russet. Historically, cider was made from the only resources available to make it, so style wasn't a large factor when considering the production process. Apples were historically confined to the cooler climates of Western Europe and Britain where civilization was slow to develop record keeping. Cider was first made from crab apples, ancestors of the bittersweet and bittersharp apples used by today's English cider makers.
Cider
In New Zealand, cider is categorised as a fruit wine and the rules which define what can be called a cider are very lax – the standards do not even specify a minimum for the amount of apple juice required to call a drink "cider". At the same time Ready to Drink beverages are not permitted for sale in supermarkets and grocery outlets. These two factors have resulted in the production of a wide range of low juice content, sweet, often flavoured drinks under the "cider" banner being used to circumvent this restriction. Most of these ciders are produced and marketed by the three large brewers (Lion Nathan, DB and Independent).