SC - Mulling recipes

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Varju at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 98-06-19 22:17:54 EDT, you write:
> 
> << When apple cider is first made, it is not fermented.  Perfectly safe for
>  kids and recovering alcoholics and others who don't want alcoholic
>  drinks >>
> 
> I have always heard that referred to as apple juice.  If it has alcohol in it
> its cider.  I think most of the languages I've learned have also had this
> distinction.  I think this is also the line of thought Ras was taking,
> especially since he is our expert on alcohol. :->
> 
> Noemi

One of the things to bear in mind is that from a period perspective, the
majority of fermentable beverages were fermented, at least in theory.
Now, the degree to which they are fermented varied considerably from
zero to full conversion of sugars to alcohols, or close to it. So, for
practical purposes, there was no need in period to define non-alcoholic
versions of wine, cider, ale, beer, or mead. They were just new batches
of wine, cider, ale, beer, or mead. One could argue that must might be
seen as a separate term for an unfermented grape juice in its most raw
form, but must was not, so far as I know, considered a beverage.

There are references in historical accounts to brewers who sold
insufficiently fermented or cleared ale; one case in Oxford brought
about the introduction of a law to deal with the problem, requiring
brewers to let their ale to ferment and settle for _six hours_ minimum.
For practical purposes that's wort, not ale. Again, wort was not thought
of as a beverage. There are also references in some Norse sagas to the
declaration, by a king or chief, of a public festival to comemorate some
great victory or other: preparations usually include both a brewing and
a baking,  and again, the ale, or in this case more properly beor, due
to its age, was drunk extremely young: a good, sweet malt flavor and a
rich body were apparently more prized than the beor's capacity for
intoxication.

So, I suspect that the name for freshly pressed cider, in period, is
cider. Fully fermented "hard" cider is cider. Either could be drunk. The
modern concept of apple juice is probably based on terminology created
by industrial apple processors, who might have found it necessary to
distinguish apple juice from cider during Prohibition (1919 - 1933 C.E.,
if I remember correctly).

One interesting aspect of all this is that non-fermented cider is
distinguished,  commercially, from apple juice in that apple juice is
filtered. (Yes, sometimes what is sold as cider, usually in gallon glass
jugs around Thanksgiving, is filtered too, but bear with me for a
minute.) Real, fresh cider usually has a fair amount of apple pulp,
giving it a dark brown color. Apple juice, as I say, is usually filtered
until amber-colored and clear. But hard cider is almost invariably
crystal clear, looking a lot like white wine. I suspect what has
happened to the average American's personal taste / judgment criteria
for cider and apple juice is that apple juice must be non-alcoholic,
since alcohol is wicked and all, but it has to look like aged hard
cider, rather than the suspicious cloudy fresh stuff.

Adamantius 
- -- 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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