Truth be told, whenever Andre and I hang out for a drink, we almost never order cider. If I’m correct, even when we drink separately, cider is hardly the top 10 drinks we’d have for the night (or afternoon). Having said that, let me qualify that its not that we don’t like cider. Its just that we don’t find a good selection here in Singapore. Update: Andre reminded me he sometimes orders a Guinness and Cider, also known as a ‘Poor Man’s Black Velvet’ (A ‘Black Velvet’ is Champagne and Guinness). Ok – proves my point that if the pure hard cider we have here is so good, why bother mixing the Guinness in?

Theory: Alcoholic drink made out of fruits = healthy and tasty, right? Hardly. I dislike fruit beers for one and for cider, the only one we usually get on tap is Strongbow. That’s too dry for my liking, to be honest. So by a twist of fate, I have been accidentally exposed to more cider in a month that in 5 years – as if to drum into me that there is some decent cider out there.  There’s been Magners which I drank a bottle of at Molly Malones, Bulmers (courtesy of my wife’s good mate working in a alcoholic beverage company) and Strongbow which I drank from the tap at The Apartment, a nice restaurant bar at trendy The Curve in Kuala Lumpur.

Now Strongbow, apart from being a very ‘commercial’ or ‘mass’ tasting cider on tap, is also quite dry and not full bodied. Does anybody feel different?

Magners Irish Cider, has a more ’boutique’ feel, as does Bulmers, also from Ireland. Good to know that Magnus is doing its part to keep the Irish agricultural industry healthy, at least the apple growing bit. For WM Magners is Ireland’s biggest purchaser of apples, accounting for a substantial proportion of the entire Irish apple crop. The difference between Magnus and Bulmers is that the former is drier that the latter – and dry is not my fave style of cider. Its the same when I drink wine – I like something not too dry, neither cloyingly sweet.

Not too dry - the way I like it

I have tried other ciders in the past including Woodpeckers (from the UK) picked up at the local Cold Storage supermarket as well as very tasty, refreshing Swedish Kopparberg pear ciders from Ikea (of all places, but you’ll score a good deal there. Why, have a cheap hotdog at the cafe too while at it!). Maybe that’s why I used to have very mismatched furniture at home. But  the last time I tried to pick up more Kopparberg during a furniture shopping break, alas, they didn’t carry it anymore. However, I did discover that Kopparberg is a town with a live webcam and where a meteor hit it millions of years ago. Maybe the meteor was thirsty for a cider?

Nugget: Kopparberg is a locality and the seat of Ljusnarsberg Municipality, Örebro County, Sweden with 3,189 inhabitants in 2005.^[1] It is famous for one of the most valuable postage stamps in the world, the Treskilling Yellow from 1857-July-13, Kopparberg’s (wooden) Church (voted #1 in Sweden in 2006), and Kopparberg Cider, now the number 1 selling pear cider in the UK and worldwide. (Source: wikipedia)

Furniture shopping at Ikea used to be a better experience (credit: wikipedia)

Anyone out there with a cider story to share? Apple, pear or other fruit?