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 apple
In the US, there are four regions where cider apples are grown in orchards: the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Northwest. Out of the twenty most commonly grown cider apple varieties, half originate from England, two come from France, and the rest originate in America. Most special cider cultivars for European ciders are bittersweets and bittersharps, which have high tannin content. There are not a lot of cultivars with high tannins readily available in the U.S. Most ciders in the United States are made from culled dessert apples that are generally sweets and sharps. There is no systematic classification of North American apple cultivars for cider-making purposes. However, there is a database for apple varieties called the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS).