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
However the last quarter of the 20th century proved this region had ample potential for revival: records of how cider was once made were left untouched. The equipment for creating its sweeter, non-alcoholic cousin could easily be switched for hard cider and many of the old presses were still usable. The wine revolution in California had taken off and often beaten European varietals in taste tests, an important step proving the United States could make quality alcohol other than whisky and opening the floodgates to better quality, more modern machinery and tools in greater volume: some of this equipment can also be used in cidermaking, and in New England thus it became possible to order it by catalogue, by asking for the surplus from California winemakers, and by the early 1990s, by internet. Heirloom varieties still survived in more remote areas of the region, sometimes hidden on abandoned farm land, and there was contact with other countries that produced alcohol derived from apples such as Canada and Ireland, the latter country exporting it for the Irish expat community in Boston and the large Irish American population in the Northeast.