After a horrific weekend experience of ‘going out’ in the way that many people seem to actively enjoy but which I can’t help feeling is a sign of mental illness (crowded clubs, 4 deep at the bar, extortionate prices, ear-bleeding music, toilets ankle deep in piss etc.) tonight has provided a welcome opportunity for a quiet drink at home in front of the telly.

This evening’s entertainment is the Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey final between the USA and Canada which, I’ve got to say, is proving to be a superb spectacle- mostly because the actual playing of the sport seems to be secondary to everyone trying to clatter their nearest opponent into the rink-side plexiglass at every available opportunity.

Now the obvious choice of beverage to accompany this event would be an ice cold North American beer of some description but this would be hamstrung by the fact that major beers from that part of the world are, to quote Eric Idle’s immortal line, “like making love in a canoe” (i.e. fucking close to water). There’s a few interesting drinks coming out of some of the smaller American and Canadian brewers but my local Co-op seems unwilling to stock these at the moment so there goes that plan.

Therefore, I’m taking this opportunity to try something bold; drinking cider in the wintertime (which sounds a little like a euphemism from an Alan Bennett monologue: “Well, Percy often turned his nose up ay my macaroons, though the rumours in the village were that he enjoyed drinking cider in the wintertime” [Warm Cobbles; 1983]). Cider or scrumpy are, of course, among the ultimate summer drinks- offering as they do an unrivalled combination of fruity refreshment and thirst-quenching lightness. Though this is allied to the potentially dangerous combination of being deceptively easy drinking yet infused with mind-bending alcohol levels. Everyone needs to have had one of those days in a sweltering beer garden where the first neck-wetting pint is swiftly despatched and followed up by two more in quick succession before the ability to walk or even blink in unison is lost for the rest of the day.

But it’s many months since we’ve had weather like that and it’ll be a while before it’s back which means I haven’t had a cider for ages. It’s just not felt right since the sun and warmth buggered off. So I’ve put my prejudice to one side and indulged in a bottle of Henry Weston’s Vintage Special Reserve- clocking in at 8.2% and available in most places with a decent bottled beer selection- to see if it’s pleasure is still intact at the end (hopefully) of this cold, cold winter we’ve had.

Well the first thing to report is that it still tastes as nicely balanced as ever- neither too tangy or dry, a little bit of sweetness and the real bite of the apple coming through on the finish. The light fizz is there which, for me, makes cider inferior to the refreshing flatness of scrumpy but at least this effort lacks the almost sherbert tartness that ruins pretty much all of the more mainstream ciders.

However. Without the need to quench a thirst and now being drunk just for the pleasure of a beverage, I’m getting the phenomenon of ‘furry tongue’ with alarming speed here. It’s usually about three pints of beer before the feel of a dry, rough tongue becomes noticable and I’m pretty sure that cider doesn’t have that effect so quickly when the sun is high in the sky but I’m only halfway through a bottle and already I feel like the inside of my gob needs a shave. I can only think this is being caused by the fact that, with the refreshing properties of the drink diminished by the current weather, a large part of the experience has actually been compromised and therefore I’m free to notice the more negative effects it’s having on the inside of my face.

I could try to mull the cider but this, as far as I can figure out, involves a saucepan, half a spice-rack and low-to-moderate witchcraft and I can’t be bothered with any of those. So I suppose the finding of this little experiment is that yes it is still worth drinking cider in the wintertime- but only if you have the one bottle. Which, at 8.2%, means it’s probably the most sensible way to consume it.

It just isn’t the best way.

Cider · Westons

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