APPLEJACK-OFF 2014: The Good, the Bad, and the Fruity of cider.

PINKY MIXOLOGY APPLEJACK-OFF 2014:

Supplemental Cider
The Good The Bad and The Ugly.

Hard Apple Cider has been around for a few thousand years, but only recently has it returned to a once prominent place of glory in the USA since it was forced into hiding by that oh so mistake of mistakes, prohibition. 

Today, even in most mega-marts in flyover country you can find a well made cider that quenches the thirst of ...thirsty-ness.  The problem is, that too many chuckle-heads are jumping on the band wagon and making some weird crap.  Worse yet, is now the mass-producers are not only buying up the good local cider brands, but they are straight up trying to steal market share with deceptively labeled products which are just crappy beers with apple flavoring and coloring added. 

We’re here to show you some examples of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the cider-scape of today.  Do keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaustive, because we don't really feel like going down to the bottle distributor and blowing like, $200 to get one of everything out there from Hornsby's to New Mexico Hard Cider.  So here's just a few to check out.


THE GOOD:


















You may notice that Doc's Draft isn't here, but that's because we love it so much that Doc's actually has its own post which you can see here.   That doesn't mean that Doc's is going to escape our wrath for what it did to its own cider though.



THE BAD:

These things are just bad.  This is because they aren't cider at all, but deceptively marketed piss-beers that have been flavored by mega-breweries.   Here in New York, we have the stupid 5 cent deposit shit on all bottles, except hard cider.  We don't know why, but a true cider in NY will never ever have a 5 cent deposit.  So if what you're buying has that, you're being taken for a ride. 





There really are few words to describe how terrible we think Redd's Apple Ale is.  Resorting to added flavors and caramel coloring to trick consumers into thinking that this is a well crafted cider  In reality this is more like just some rejected Miller High Life which has been given the Apple Zima treatment.  We can simply call it nothing short of disgusting to our tastes. 








While Shock Top is from a mass-producer, it sometimes hits the spot when it's $4 at happy hour and you can down 4 for $20 while the game is on and still be able to leave a decent tip.  That being said, only the regular kind should exist, and adding apple to it is like shoving a square peg into a round hole; Yes something got through, but nobody really wins.   


THE UGLY:

This is really just tragic.   These are otherwise good labels producing crap by mixing their cider with flavors that just mess them up and take away from makes them great.   The biggest tragedy is Doc's Draft, which seems to be under the impression that their actual hard cider can be improved by messing with it.   Spoiler alert; it can't. 







We LOVE Doc's Draft.  It is one of our favorites and we constantly lobby our local stores to carry it.  But, the reason why we love it is also the reason we can't stand when they go an try to fix what isn't broken by creating berry versions, pumpkin versions, or a dry-hopped cider (who dry-hops a cider? why would you want to do that?).  The apple and the pear are glorious, but their other concoctions fall short.  We just don't like them.





Wen it comes down to it, cider is cider and shoving berries or pumpkin up its ass is just gonna be a mess.  You can do that kind of stuff with beer, because beer is more or less plain toasted bread.  So you could put canned pumpkin or raspberry jam on toast, but would you really put it on apple slices?  Yeah, think about that.


It should go without saying that some people might like these berry ciders, because they aren't poorly made.  We just happen to not really be into that kind of flavoring, but that's just us.  You like what you like, so don't go limiting yourself on our account (except for Redd's ...never ever have that). 


The Pinky Mixology Applejack-off of 2014 continues with our in-depth look at Black Dirt Applejack.