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.
Perry
"Pear cider" has in recent years been used as an alternative name for alcoholic drinks containing pear juice, in preference to the term perry . According to the BBC, the term was first used when Brothers Cider, a product industrially made from pear concentrate, rather than the traditional method using perry pears, was sold at Glastonbury Festival in 1995: nobody understood what perry was and were told that it was "like cider, but made from pears".