ICED CIDER
by Professor Hrayr Berberoglu.

February 9, 2005


Canadians' love for sweet desserts and of late with wines is well noted. Although younger generations claim to shun sweet, anything in realty proves otherwise. Chocolate consumption has been increasing over the last decade, as is icewine. Sweet fruit wines have been carving a niche for themselves. Soft drink consumption continues unabated. Orchard owners in Quebec have stumbled upon sweet cider, which differs, from iced apple wine produced in Ontario by fruit wineries. Iced cider requires 100 apples for 750 ml bottle, but apples being less expensive, the price of this product tends to be significantly lower than icewine.

There are two techniques in producing iced cider - freezing the juice of apples that have been exposed to at least one frost, and discarding the water before inoculation, the thawed liquid to start fermentation, or having the crop unpicked until frozen solid.

Pressing the juice of frozen apples is a slow, arduous process and must be controlled carefully to ensure that only the sweet, ambrosia-like juice is used for fermentation.

Iced cider contains more alcohol than icewine in general and has a lively mouth feel due to high acidity.

Iced cider may be blended from several apple species (Spartans, McIntosh, Mutsu, Northern Spy, Granny Smith, Fuji, Braeburn) go into the blend, or extracted from one type.

In Quebec, the Eastern Townships are the big producers. On the Pacific Coast of Canada, British Columbia's Okanagan Valley started producing iced cider from locally grown fruit. Here, the industry is small, but growing. Ambrosia, Fuji, and Granny Smith apples are used for iced cider.

Quebec producers have been awarded international recognition for their iced ciders, and export to many provinces and countries.

British Columbia's iced cider industry is much smaller, but in time may surpass that of Quebec.

Hrayr Berberoglu took early retirement after lecturing on restaurant management and conducting wine, beer and spirits seminars for over a quarter of a century.

Now he consults and writes to increase wine, beer and liquor awareness. He conducts seminars and would be pleased to consider your requests. To peruse the list of his published books and order please contact him at hirayrberberoglu_3@sympatico.ca

Hryar Berberoglu www.littlefatwino.com