The Cider Diaries-24/1/09

Last night was a leaving do for Fog's live in lover Emma who is going off travelling around the world for the next eight months. We were meeting at Fog's for a drink or two before heading to Incognitos for a few more. Keen to give Emma a good send off, I turned up at Fog's hand in celebratory mood with a new cider in hand.

36. Kingstone Press Cider
Kingstone Press wasn't anything very special as a cider. Ceri was in Barry for the night but neither me or Fog could get very excited about it. On the back of the bottle it bore the following paragraph:

The traditional type of CIDER PRESS was called a RACK & CLOTH press.

This was used to crush the POMACE and extract the APPLE JUICES

these CIDER JUICES were then left to FERMENT in their own WILD YEAST.

I'm not sure why the manufacture choose to highlight certain words and I'm not sure what a pomace is but I figured I'd include their words here as they probably constitute more actual information than I've ever put into the cider diaries before.

After we'd finished that it was time to head to Incognito. I wasn't optimistic that we'd find a new cider in this particular bar but it was Emma's night so I was in no position to call the shots. I was resigned to just enjoying the evening and forgetting about new ciders for the time being. So I was pleasantly suprised to find that there was indeed a new cider behind the bar.

37. Orchard Gold Award Traditional Farmhouse Welsh Cider

This cider must be some sort of relative of the Gold Medal Welsh cider that we tried a little while ago because it bore the same "Wind of The Dragon" slogan on the bottle. I really liked it but Fog wasn't so keen. "It's the taste at the side of my mouth, it's too dry."

"You're drinking it too slowly, swilling it around in your mouth too quickly," I told him. "Just get it along your tongue and down your neck." I took a bit of time over my next swig, trying to see what Fog was talking about. It did indeed have a different taste at the side of the both but I found it very tasty.

While we enjoyed our drinks we chatted to our new bestest mate James, a friend of Emma's who apparently helps to organise cider festivals in Gloucester. He recommended various ciders including a couple from Cornwall with particularly choice names, Wiggly Worm and Pig's Ear. Mind you, his cider of choice for the evening was Strongbow and black so I'm not really sure if he knows what he's talking about.

Apparently Wiggly Worm was originally made with a real worm in the bottom of each bottle but no longer. This is a relief if I'm honest but there is a part of me that thinks that finding the nerve to drink a cider with a worm in it might make for an entertaining diary entry. Get in touch if you know of such a cider, but I'm only looking for ciders that are usually served that way, I'm not interested in a bottle of Bulmers that's been tampered with.

Later on a group of us had a go on the 'Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old?' game on the bar's quiz machine. We lost quite heavily. Alright, maybe we aren't as smart as a ten year old but I'd like to ask any ten year olds this: How many different ciders have you tried this year?

I'm willing to conced that its possible a ten year old somewhere has had more than thirty seven different ciders this year but if they have then they probably have pretty awful, negligent parents so in a way me and Fog probably still win.