The fabulous October weather is now just a memory but it made for a golden, old-fashioned apple day down in Somerset. The plan was to pick and convert a mound of sugar-rich Redstreaks — about 400 kilos — into a rather special vintage. We would pour the apple juice into an oak hogshead, freshly emptied of its whisky, to make a cider tinged with a 20-year-old malt. How good does that sound?
The idea of the get-together was the idea of designer Bill Amberg and publisher Damian Jaques, who is a cider boffin. Various friends and their families convened by an old barn with a nearby orchard. We tipped piles of apples on to a mat. The children rinsed the fruit in buckets and chucked them into a tall macerating contraption. From there we scooped the chopped fruit into a Lancman Hydropress, a lovely piece of Slovenian kit. Its big rubber bladder expands under water pressure, compressing the apple pulp against the walls of a perforated steel drum. Gallons of foaming juice gratifyingly gush forth. We swigged jugs of it. The apple fumes hung in the air. The dogs chased each other until they got bored. Lunch was bread and wedges of pongingly good cheddar bought in nearby Bruton, one stop short of Castle Cary if you are travelling west from Paddington.
Young farmers mostly drink vodka and Red Bull these days. But back in the 18th century, West Country labourers had their pay supplemented by four pints of cider a day. I had it (wrongly) in mind that Thomas Hardy offered a cautionary tale about cider abuse in Far from the Madding Crowd.
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