News: Click on Where to Buy-Retail and find sixteen New Hampshire Liquor Stores newly listed. But the enterprising merchants who first offered Farnum Hill ciders are still there, still bold and interesting. For us, it's a happy combination.  Suggestions for new shops? Do write.

Farnum Hill Cider fulfills the true meaning of the word “cider” -- an alcoholic beverage fermented from apples, exactly as a wine is fermented from grapes. Our own ciders, at 6.5-7.5% alcohol, tend toward the dry, sharp, fruity and bountifully aromatic. We intend them to gladden the moment and to freshen the flavors of companionable foods. We are proud of Farnum Hill Ciders, and we are authoritatively told that, for now at least, they are the best-made ciders in America.

We hope and expect that more Eastern apple-growers will learn the craft and horticulture of cidermaking, and that distinctive American orchard-based ciders, now too rare, will return to their pre-Prohibition glory and variety. Johnny Appleseed planted the frontier for cider, after all -- “Mom and apple pie” came later, blotting out certain enjoyable truths from the national memory. But now cider -- real cider -- is back.

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From Michael Pollan’s recent book, The Botany of Desire (Random House, New York, 2001.)

“ ...the Old Testament warned against the temptations of the grape. But the bible didn’t have a bad word to say about the apple.... (more)