The Best of the Bottles
From Ukcider
This page is for reviews of your favourite bottled cider or perry.
Contents |
Cornish
Cornish Orchards St Cuby's cider Medium or Dry
Delicious and satisfying, not too bubbly, plenty of apple and tannin flavours, fresh and clean tasting. Available in some Booths supermarkets for £4.14 Ingredients listed.
Perry
Oliver's One 2 Medium Perry
"The juice, the whole juice, nothing but the juice"
A lovely, refreshing, perry, fragrant and tasty. Highly recommended. Available at The Dartmouth Arms, London.
Breton
Cidre Breton
Dry, crisp, 'apple-skin' flavour. A 1ltr. bottle cost £6 ( Lord Palmerston Pub, London) and was fine for two to share. Smaller bottles also available.
Single Varietals
Sheppy's Dabinett
A single variety cider with a dry, crisp taste.
Nov 2005 - Recently had some and found it much sweeter and with a toffee-like taste. Hopefully this was an 'off batch'.
Sheppy's Tremlett's Bitter
Another single variety, drier and with more tannin than their Dabinett.
Dunkertons
Dunkerton's Black Fox
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An excellent, full-bodied blended dry cider, not too fizzy. Waitrose or Booths are the most likely places to find it nationally in the uk, otherwise try mail order. Well worth seeking out.
Frome Valley
Frome Valley Dry Cider
An excellent natural cider from Henny's 6%
"The cider is fermented from a blend of 100% fresh pressed juice from carefully selected, genuine cider apple varieties. Unlike some makers, we do not use concentrated juice or supplementary fermentation sugars and no artificial flavourings or sweeteners are added. The result is a fruity, crisp, refreshing drink enjoyable on its own or with food. Allergen advice: contains sulphites"
Available at Morrisons, Booths and OHV
Gwynt Y Ddraigg
Black Dragon
Lovely stuff, but a bit fizzy for our tastes. However, pour it like a Sidra and let the fizz die down and it's great, full flavoured, rich and very similar to their draught ciders. Waitrose stores in Wales stock this as do Brains pubs and some off-licences.
Harechurch Hill
Kingston Black
Complex, tasty, full fruit flavour. From Gloucestershire
Sidra Natural
Cortina
This was the best out of several different sidras from Asturias tasted in Northern Spain, August 2005. Wonderful. Cortina at sidreria.com (es)
Miravalles
This was my favourite sidra from several we tried in Madrid October 2005. Miravalles make the sweet, sparkling sidra available on draught in most of the bars we visited. The sidra natural is drier and a little tarter than most we tried, though perhaps the great bar we drank it in made it more memorable. Miravalles at sidreria.com (es)
French Cidre
If you are travelling through France and cannot find a local cider maker, or are only stopping at the odd supermarket, you could do a lot worse than try one of these... It would appear that the French are also experiencing a resurgence of interest in ciders and one or two of the larger makers are targeting ciders to cash in on this. Here's two that we tried and enjoyed.
Ecusson Grand Cidre Cuvee Especiale 5.0%
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Rich, dark golden-brown, very very tasty. Not bone dry, just enough sweetness to make it a very pleasant drink. Although a traditional wired-down cork, the bottom of the bottle is flat and so there is a pleasant light sparkle. Great with jambon blanc, Camembert / Brie / Cantal and a fresh baguette. Worth seeking out on your cross-channel hop - the Hypermarket in Dunkerque stocks it too...
Loc Raison Extra Brut 6.0%
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Loc Raison is a large Brittany-based Breton cider-maker that makes ciders that are stocked in supermarkets all over France. They used to make a very good Cidre Brut bouche in a clear glass bottle, but this is difficult to track down now and the vast majority of their produce is sold in un-appealing plastic bottles... However, this little gem is something else and reminded us greatly of a clear version of our old favourite Cider Brut. Traditional wired cork and a heavy, deep-bottomed champagne bottle, sexy satin-black glass. Promises that it is "Double Fremented". Although labelled "Extra Brut" it was quite a bit sweeter than the Ecusson and despite the heavy bottle, only had a gentle fizz. Again, stocked in the Hypermarkets on the channel coast.
Westons
Probably the best of the Westons bottles is the 1880
