There are three apple trees at the bottom of the garden. They are old but full of fruit. And if I’m honest I’d been thinking about it for several years and never done anything about it. My wife had. She grabbed the apples with gusto and made pies, crumbles and chutneys. I was just paralysed with with fear and indecision. “Can you?” I asked myself. “Can you make cider from the apple in the trees in the back garden?" I searched the internet a bit. I had made beer from kits so we had most of the equipment. Then in a burst of energy I decided we were doing this.

The only extra piece we needed was an apple press. Human force would never be enough, you needed weight. I explored the internet again. We didn’t need to spend money - we could create something. The Internet supplied plans. In hindsight I think these were probably influenced by people in America who wanted to live off grid and had access to a forest to build enormous apple presses. We eventually cobbled something together which involved several plastic containers, two garden benches, a car jack and several concrete slabs. It was very Heath Robinson, very creaky but seemed to work. 

We gathered the windfall. We pulled a few more reluctant apples off the branches and chopped and diced and eventually we squeezed the life out of enough apples to fill a large brewing bucket. There it sat all brown, foamy and wonderfully
apple smelling. I think we might have chucked some home brew wine yeast in. And it bubbled away for maybe ten days. We checked it, measured it, tasted it and eventually racked it and bottled it with a carbonation tablet. And then we left it alone.

We gave it a few weeks and decided the time had come to open one. And it was absolutely... disgusting, revolting, horrible and dreadful. A sort of alcoholic cider vinegar. I sulked. I thought about all the apple pies and crumbles there might have been. Eventually I did some more research and found the key to future success and eventual cider happiness.

So in case you didn’t know, nearly all ciders are made by blending a mixture of apples. I can now reveal that one very popular brand claims it has 17 or maybe 37 different apple varieties in it. Apparently there is a cider called 365, or something like that, and has 365 different apple varieties in it. Although you’d probably have to take their word for it. So here’s to mixing it up and making better cider.

Second time round, with more varieties slung in, the cider was so good no one believed we made it. There are a few apples that make very good ciders by themselves. We call them Single Variety ciders.