A Taste of Fall in a Bottle of Hard Cider

[lsanderson]

By DAVID TANIS
Published: October 5, 2012

A FEW years ago, I spent a month in a tiny village in Normandy. Up the road, past an ancient apple orchard, was a dairy farm run by Monsieur Bernard, a wiry, weathered, hard-working fellow who looked to be in his mid to late 60s.

It was a really small dairy farm, just 14 cows. “I used to have a big herd,” he told me, “but there’s not much business anymore. Everyone around here has moved to town.”

Still, he did have a handful of loyal customers, and if you wandered by in the afternoon just after milking time and brought your own jug, he would sell you a liter of still-warm milk for a few centimes. I’m not much of a milk drinker, except for a little in my morning coffee, but I still walked over every day to buy some, and to have a chat.

Each day Monsieur Bernard got a bit friendlier, and by the end of the second week, I found my status had changed from nosy tourist to trusted regular. I received a gift with purchase: a bottle of his homemade hard cider or, as he called it, cidre bouché. The cider was delicious, if a bit rough around the edges. Unfiltered, yeasty, lightly alcoholic and full of apple flavor, it was a far cry from the cloying commercial cider I grew up with. Moar

Recipe: Pork Chops With Apples and Cider