The Cider Diaries-19/1/09

At work on Monday I picked up a copy of Delia Smith's frugal food. I figure I could do with cooking some cheap meals, to free up more money for cider drinking. Then after work I met up with Fog to try a new cider. There's a microbrewery called Zero Degrees in town. Unfortunately, although they make a range of different beers including a very tasty mango beer they haven't had the sense to bother brewing their own cider. I'll forgive them though, if only because the single cider that they do serve is one that we hadn't seen elsewhere.

33. Gaymer's Orchard Reserve
This cider is served in a wine bottle, perfect for this slightly pretentious bar/restaurant but unfortunately the taste didn't live up to the classy packaging. It tasted pretty much like Magners. As such, I was disappointed but Fog enjoyed it well enough. While we drank I was looking over my new cookery book, seeing if I could find a decent recipe to cook for my dinner that night. I discovered, with some excitement, a recipe for sausages in cider sauce.

We decided we would go home and cook the cider-centric dish the same evening. But first Emma arrived and we headed on to Copa for another drink. Copa looked like quite a classy bar and I was expecting some sort of contemporary dance or chill out music to be playing so I was pleasantly suprised by the soundtrack of seventies soft rock inside, Wings, Elton John, Cockney Rebel etc.

I was just as pleased to find that they had three ciders I hadn't seen elsewhere. We will have to make a return visit there sometime as we only had time for one.

34. Aspall Draught Suffolk Cyder
I'd been looking forward to this for sometime. I had enjoyed several bottles of Aspall's cider last year and despite the dubious spelling Iremembered it as just about the best cider I'd ever tasted. It was a little sweeter than I remembered and I think Fog was a bit dissapointed after I had hyped it up to him so much. Nonetheless it was very nice with a distinctive apple flavour, not quite as 'incredible' as the label told us it would be.

We drank this and the Gaymer's Orchard Reserve over ice because Fog thinks we should go by serving suggestions whenever possible and apparently this includes bar staff asking, "Do you want a glass and ice?" It was really bugging me and we ended up having our most detailed discussion yet about the ice net for pint glasses. Fog has clearly given it a lot of thought but I don't want to give away too much in case anyone tries to steal the idea before Fog has the chance to patent it.

35. Devon Village Amber Cider
Having a live in lover has had more than just the obvious benifits for Fog. It means home cooked meals and well stocked cupboards so he already had all the ingredients we needed for the recipe except, ironically enough, the cider. We picked some up on the way back and then went home and cooked enthusiastically. Ceri was there but had already eaten and was also having a day off drinking which meant he turned down our generous offer of cider and dinner. Which was a bit rubbish of him lets face it.

Undetered, Fog and I served ourselves large portions of sausage with cider sauce on creamy mash. Alongside it, a pint each of the same cider we'd used for the cooking. Devon Village Amber Cider was another bog standard two litre plastic bottle full of bog standard cider. Perhaps it was an appropriate choice for cooking, because while there was nothing wrong with it you certainly wouldn't hold it back to enjoy as a drink. The food on the other hand was delicious and I wondered what it would be like made with an even finer cider.