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 mill
In England, Jersey, and northern France, the traditional form was a "horse-mill" or "stone mill". A horse-mill consists of a circular trough made of stone, in which is set either one or two large stone wheels called "runners". At the center is a pivot point or "nut". A horse is harnessed to the outside of the wheel, and driven in a circle, slowly grinding the apples to a pulpy mass called pommage. Through the early 19th century, this was the dominant form in England. By the early 20th century in Britain, however, the stone mills had largely fallen out of fashion, increasingly replaced by the roller mills, though they continued to be the primary form in France. Though the stone mill had been introduced to and used by the American Colonists, its usage was not well recorded, and by the end of the 19th century it was essentially unknown in the United States.