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 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.