Hard Cider's Mysterious Demise (~2001)

mason.gmu.edu

13 points·ravenstine··4 comments

Super interesting. I always wondered why the US call "cider" their apple juice and do not know the real thing.

In the decades since this was written, cider has made a comeback in parts of the US. Quality varies. (I do not count angry orchard mass-market ciders, or else we could say it has made a comeback in almost all of the US.)

We can probably thank Angry Orchard's cider tasting like Jolly Ranchers for cider not making more of a comeback.

Angry Orchard... Jolly Ranchers... hah. I see what's going on here.

My guess is cider isn't considered macho enough even when compared to the lousiest beer available. Just like White Claw and long island iced teas, I almost never see men drinking them.

From speaking to a few people in the industry, I believe there is also a significant problem with the delayed return on investment for establishing orchards with appropriate apples. Part of why AO tastes like candy is because it's made from apples which have been selected for decades, well, to taste like candy, to sell to consumers as eating apples. Their all-granny smith cider comes to mind as a shocking example. Supposedly AO has an intentional business model of selling these subpar products to finance establishing orchards for real cider but idk how that is working out.

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