Cider apple
Cider is made in several countries and can be made from any apples. Historically the flavours preferred and varieties used to produce cider have varied by region. Many of the most traditional apple varieties used for ciders come from or are derived from those from Devon, Somerset and Herefordshire in England, Normandy in France, and Asturias in Spain, and these areas are considered to have their own broad cider styles although the many exceptions make this more of a historic footnote. Normandy cider is usually naturally carbonated and clear: Asturian cider apple varieties are mainly 'sharps' or mild 'bittersweets', producing a mildly acidic cider which is customarily served by being poured from height into the glass to oxygenate it.
Cuisine of the Thirteen Colonies
Hard apple cider was by far the most common alcoholic beverage available to colonists. This is because apple trees could be grown locally throughout the colonies, unlike grapes and grain which did not grow well at all in New England. Cider was also easier to produce than beer or wine, so it could be made by farmers for their own consumption. Since it was not imported, it was much more affordable to the average colonist than beer or wine. Apple trees were planted in both Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay Colony as early as 1629. Most of these trees were not grafted, and thus produced apples too bitter or sour for eating; they were planted expressly for making cider. Cider was sometimes also distilled or freeze-distilled into applejack (so called because freeze-distillation was called "jacking"); the cold climate of the Northeast in the wintertime encouraged the process. The beverage was particularly popular in New Jersey, where applejack was occasionally called "Jersey lightning" and was sometimes used to pay road-construction crews.