Always make the effort to look for unpasteurized cider. It tastes so much better, fresher, real, like real apples. The people who make unpasteurized cider usually strain it less, so you have greater suspension of apple bits and thus more of the texture that distinguishes tangy cider from sweet juice. If you substitute apple juice in the recipe, it's a different drink.
Apple cider is made when apples are ripe and plentiful. That's why we drink it now. Something's definitely wrong with cider that can sit on the shelf for months. Unpasteurized cider will last a week in the refrigerator. So drink it up, or you'll be hitting the hard stuff.
This recipe is the classic one. I suppose I've tweaked it a bit. Like chai, everyone's got a favorite way of making cider. Use whole spices. Again, it makes a big difference in flavor. Think about it. If you dump in ground cinnamon, you're drinking the bark. It's bitter. You can remove a cinnamon stick. Nutmeg is the exception, since the seed is so large. Buy the spices fresh. They too have a shelf life.
HOT SPICED CIDER
6 cups apple cider
2 cinnamon sticks
6 whole cloves
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 allspice berries (optional)
Heat to boiling. Let it sit on the stove, not quite simmering, for 10 to 20 minutes. Then serve, being careful to strain out the spices.
If you're going to add rum, I would also add 2 tablespoons of brown sugar or a little less than 1/4 cup maple syrup. Avoid using honey; it shouldn't be heated.
And if you're going to add sweetener, why not keep going and add several slices of fresh ginger and a sliced orange, including (especially) peel? The ginger and orange need to be added in the beginning, with the spices.
And if you're going to add sweetener, why not keep going and add several slices of fresh ginger and a sliced orange, including (especially) peel? The ginger and orange need to be added in the beginning, with the spices.
When I went away to college, I visited a young woman my age I hadn't seen since I was born. She was the daughter of my mother's best friend at the time. This young woman had grown up in the country. In the brief time we were together, I had a glimpse into boundlessness of her life and her ease of disappearing, whereas I had spent my childhood and adolescence seeking out the gaps in the suburban grid.
She decided to take this suburbanite to an apple butter cookoff. We went to a local park, or maybe it was somebody's farm. An enormous black drum sat on the lawn, filled with peeled apples. The apples were being stirred with a pole by different people taking shifts. The apples got sweeter, or maybe stickier, as they cooked. Yellow jackets began to hover over the surface. No one paid any attention. I saw one wasp get too close to the apple butter surface and disappear. I mentioned it to my partner from infancy. She said it didn't matter. It would get strained out. Hmmm.
I went off to college and she to her life. We never met again. I have loved the tang of apple butter ever since.
