Cider
Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of apples. Cider is popular in the United Kingdom, especially in the West Country, and widely available. The UK has the world's highest per capita consumption, as well as its largest cider-producing companies. Cider is also popular in many Commonwealth countries, such as India, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Aside from the UK and its former colonies, cider is popular in other European countries including Ireland, Portugal (mainly in Minho and Madeira), France (particularly Brittany and Normandy), northern Italy (Piedmont and Friuli), and Spain (especially Asturias and the Basque Country). Central Europe also has its own types of cider with Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse producing a particularly tart version known as Apfelwein. In the U.S. and parts of Canada, varieties of fermented cider are often called "hard cider" to distinguish alcoholic cider from non-alcoholic "cider" or "sweet cider", also made from apples.
Cider in the United States
The history of cider in the United States is very closely tied to the history of apple growing in the country. Most of the 17th- and 18th-century emigrants to America from the British Isles drank hard cider and its variants: water was not a trusted source of hydration and so beer, ale, fruit brandy, and cider were used as more sanitary substitutes. Apples were one of the earliest known crops in the English-speaking New World; ships' manifests show young saplings being carefully planted in barrels and many hopeful farmers bringing bags of seed with them, with the first settlers headed to what is now the Southeast. Within thirty-five years of the settlement of Jamestown in 1607, the land was put to the plow to grow tobacco which provided a source of revenue for the colonists and made British settlement a success in the New World after several failed attempts. However, other edible cash crops were planted, like rice, maize, and apples, since such would have had value in the markets of growing cities like London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Cardiff.