In praise of cyder

ONE of the undoubted joys of living in the West Country is that on a hot summer’s day one can never be far from a refreshing pint of dry farmhouse cider straight from the wood.  

Long ago it was produced by most farmhouses and many individuals who took it into the fields to slake their thirst as they toiled away in the sun, often taking it as part of their wages, but today things are quite a bit different.

In one sense, cider is its own worst enemy. Stronger than beer, easy to drink and very cheap it was a firm favourite with lads experiencing delights of the public house for the first time. They would spend every little, get drunk very quickly, then pick a fight or throw up. Not the sort of custom that a landlord would encourage. Proper cider is about 6% and needs to be treated with respect.  

Decades ago the landlord found a solution in offering a drink which was pasteurised, diluted, bland and made undrinkably fizzy with the addition of carbon dioxide. In recent times this once glorious drink suffered even more indignities by being saturated with sugar and mixed with various fruit juices, a monopoly which seemed to have taken over the town’s pubs for a while in recent years. 

Today there is only one pub in Frome that sells a decent pint of real cider and that is the Lamb & Fountain who serve an excellent pint of Riches. In Stoney Street there is Andy’s Micro pub which sells a variety of different ciders including Roger Wilkin’s possibly the greatest of them all. The Blue Boar in the Market Place has Cheddar Valley on tap which is very drinkable but not what you would call real.

Things were very different in 1799. Abraham Crocker, Frome resident and schoolmaster at the Blue House produced a small book which he called, The Art of Making and Managing Cyder deduced from Rational Principles and Actual Experience. He circulated his knowledge amongst a few friends who were so impressed that they persuaded him to set it out in book form.

Crocker had a good friend, John Cranch, artist and polymath who was a supporter of the newly installed American government and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Cranch was related by marriage to John Adams the second president and Crocker’s little book was enthusiastically supported and promoted in that country – possibly Frome’s first export to America. 

The 40 page book describes in detail the best kind of cyder producing apples including, Captain Nurse’s Kernal, Barn’s Door, Staverton Red- Streak and the Broad-Nosed Pippin none of which you are likely to come across today.

The process sounds like a simplicity itself, of course there’s a lot more to it but these are the basics. Shake the tree and when the apples drop they ready for use. Mix whatever varieties you choose and basically smash them to bits until you have a large pulp known as a ‘cheese’ this is then pressed until the juice runs out which is left to ferment and placed in open vessels for a couple of days before being placed in barrels and left for the winter.  

At the beginning of March the cider should be expected to be bright and clear and ready for bottling. Crocker concludes that, “By the month of July following, the Cyderist will find himself possessed of a grateful, lively, sparkling and exhilarating liquor, highly delicious to the palate and congenial to the human constitution, fit for princes and the best of their subjects to regale themselves with.”

As well as a schoolmaster and author Crocker spent much of his career as a land surveyor, artist and valuer. Little is known about his private life but it is being actively researched at the moment. His portrait hangs in Frome Museum. 

A decent drop may be obtained from: Roger Wilkins, Wedmore, 01934 712385; Hecks, Street, 01458 442367; Riches, Highbridge, 01278 794537. 

Mick Davis