or CIDER, an excellent drink made of the juice of apples, especially of the more curious table kinds; the juice of these being esteemed more cordial and pleasant than that of the wild or harsh kinds. In making this drink it hath long been thought necessary, in every part of England, to lay the harder cyder-fruits in heaps for some time before breaking their pulps; but the Devonshire people have much improved this practice. In other counties the method is to make these heaps of apples in a house, or under some covering inclosed on every side. This method hath been found defective, because, by excluding the free air, the heat soon became too violent, and a great perspiration ensued, by which in a short time the lots of juices was so great, as to reduce the fruit to half their former weight, attended with a general rottenness, rancid smell, and disagreeable taste. In the South-hams, a middle way has been pursued, to avoid the inconveniences and loss attending the above. They make their heaps of apples in an open part of an orchard, where, by the means of a free air and less perspiration, the desired maturity is brought about, with an inconsiderable waste of the juices and decay of the fruit, entirely free of rankness; and though some apples rot even in this manner, they are very few, and are still fit for use; all continue plump and full of juices, and very much heighten the colour of cyders, without ill taste or smell.
In pursuing the Devonshire method, it is to be observed, 1. That all the promiscuous kinds of apples that have dropped from the trees, from time to time, are to be gathered up and laid in a heap by themselves, and to be made into cyder after having lain about ten days. 2. Such apples as are gathered from the trees, having already acquired some degree of maturity, are likewise to be laid in a heap by themselves for about a fortnight. 3. The later hard fruits, which are to be left on the trees till the approach of frost is apprehended, are to be laid in a separate heap, where they are to remain a month or six weeks, by which, notwithstanding frost, rain, &c. their juices will receive such a maturation, as will prepare them for a kindly fermentation, and which they could not have attained on the trees by means of the coldness of the season.
It is observable, that the riper and mellower the fruits are at the time of collecting them into heaps, the shorter should be their continuance there; and on the contrary, the harsher, immature, and harder they are, the longer they should rest.
These heaps should be made in an even and open part of an orchard, without any regard to covering from rain, dews, or what else may happen during the apples staying there; and whether they be carried in and broke in wet or dry weather, the thing is all the same. If it may be objected that during their having Cyder together in the heap, they may have imbibed great humidity, as well from the air as from the ground, rain, dews, &c. which are mixed with their juices; the answer is, this will have no other effect than a kindly diluting, natural to the fruit, by which means a speedier fermentation ensues, and all heterogeneous humid particles are thrown off.
The apples are then ground, and the pumice is received in a large open-mouthed vessel, capable of containing as much thereof as is sufficient for one making, or one cheese. Though it has been a custom to let the pumice remain some hours in the vessel appropriated to contain it, yet that practice is by no means commendable; for if the fruits did not come ripe from the trees, or otherwise matured, the pumice, remaining in the vat too long, will acquire such harshnesses and coarsenesses from the skins as is never to be got rid of; and if the pumice is of well ripened fruit, the continuing too long there will occasion it to contract a sharpness that very often is followed with want of spirit and pricking; nay, sometimes it even becomes vinegar, or always continues of a wheyish colour; all which proceeds from the heat of fermentation that it almost instantly falls into on lying together; the pumice therefore should remain no longer in the vat than until there may be enough broke for one pressing, or that all be made into a cheese, and pressed the same day it is broken.
In Plate CLIV. is a perspective view of the cyder-pits and apple-mill.
A, B, the bottom or lower beam; C, D, the upper beam; 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, the uprights; 4, 4, e, spurs; Z, 2, 12, braces, or crofs-pieces; a, b, capitals; X, blocks; g, the screw; E, the back or receiver; F, the cheese or cake of pumice, placed on the stage or bason; G, the stage or bason; 10, 10, beams that support the pieces of which the bason is composed; 11, perpendicular pieces for supporting these beams; H, the buckler; R, S, Q, a circular trough of the apple-mill; T, L, V, compartments or divisions, for different sorts of apples; M, the mill-stone; L, M, axis of the mill stone; N, the spring-tree bar.
Cyder-Spirit, a spirituous liquor drawn from cyder by distillation, in the same manner as brandy from wine. The particular flavour of this spirit is not the most agreeable, but it may with care be divested wholly of it, and rendered a perfectly pure and infipid spirit upon rectification. The traders in spirituous liquors are well enough acquainted with the value of such a spirit as this: they can give it the flavours of some other kinds, and sell it under their names, or mix it in large proportion with the foreign brandy, rum, and arrack, in the sale, without any danger of a discovery of the cheat.