Cider Review: Citizen Cider bRosé

Apologies to everyone. I've been a terrible blogger this month. February is hard, what can I say? Trust me, I'm still thinking cider and drinking cider. Mea culpa! This is an older set of notes from a cider-tasting bonfire party back in the fall. It was the first real cold night of the season and wonderful fun to taste ciders with a group of dedicated folks.

Citizen Cider is a company I don't know well. They are a relatively young company out of Burlington, Vermont. They were also the group with the most visible showing at Cider Days in Massachusetts because so many of their employees were wearing genuintely cool matching Citizen Cider shirts. I found this on their website: "Citizen Cider was founded in 2011 by Justin Heilenbach, Bryan Holmes and Kris Nelson. Kris was working as a wine salesmen, Bryan as a chemist and Justin as a small farmer." So it sounds like they have a really inspiringly appropriate set of skills between them.You can find out more information at their own website here: http://www.citizencider.com/.

So, the bRosé has the less than helpful official description, "Cider + Blueberries + 3(bros) = bRose. An off-dry cider co-fermented with blueberries. (ABV 6.8%)" This is improved slightly when I hunt for more details and find that the apples and blueberries are all local Vermont grown: using local materials is something I admire in a cider.

Appearance: Brilliant, salmon, not many visible bubbles

Obviously this is a gorgeous cider. It looks lovely in the bottle and you can trust me that it looks even better in the glass. Absolutely brilliant clarity and a salmon pink color that .

Aromas: vinous, blueberry, baked goods

It smells both like wine and muffins. Hrm. Interesting.  I think the impression I get of muffins is because the bRose smells both fruity and yeasty, also a bit like a yogurt-y cheese. The vinous notes are the most noticeable, but the blueberry comes in second. I'm not smelling a ton of apples.

Sweetness: Sweet but well balanced

This cider does use sweetness to transmit flavor and it has plenty of fruit in the profile, but it does use enough acidity to remain crisp and sharp. Citizen Cider has done a nice job balancing a pleasant sweet cider.

Flavors and Drinking Experience: fine bubbles, subtle blueberry, plenty of acidity

The Brose tastes fairly acidic with low levels of tannins. The flavor is livened by lots of very fine bubbles. Blueberry is subtle in the bRose's aftertaste. Though it smells directly like blueberry the flavor is more like blueberry skins. That pleasantly bitter effect is reminiscent of stems as well; it improves the cider's balance. Overall, somehow it has a warm taste. My one caveat is that bigger drinks give me a moment of funny cereal funk.  Usually though this cider offers a clean finish with almost no aftertaste. 

This would be a great Valentine's Day cider for those inclined to celebrate the holiday. Or, since today is now Galentine's Day (look it up!) share this with your best friends. Those friendships deserve to be celebrated with delightful tastes, and this cider is an easy one even for not-yet-afficianados. Mind you, for all that good friend time you might need a few bottles! Enjoy.

Cooking with Cider: Crispin's Honey Crisp in Apple Scones with Maple Glaze

It has been far too long since I've shared any of my cider cooking experiences here, especially since I'm discovering new ways to use cider for cooking all the time. This seems like a very winter appropriate recipe to share for the brutal cold wave that happens to be freezing most of us here in the United States today. My good friend Amber and I baked apple scones with cider and made a Crispin Honeycrisp maple cider glaze. They turned out super yummy.

Apple Scones with Crispin Honeycrisp Maple Glaze

 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 heaping tbs baking powder

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2 lb (or 2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup pure maple syrup

1/2 cup apple, grated (no need to peel the apples before grating)

First off, the Apple Scone part of the recipe.

Preheat the oven to 375° F

Combine dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Put aside.

Mix cubed butter with heavy cream, maple syrup, and grated apple in a different mixing bowl. Feel free to use either a hand mixer, stand mixer, or a wooden spoon, depending on what you've got. I don't have a stand mixer, so I know more about how to use a hand mixer a spoon.

Then combine the dry bowl ingredients and the wet bowl ingredients into whichever bowl is larger. In any case, take it slow. You don't have to worry about a perfect texture. It is better for little bits of apple to remain together than to overmix.

 
Generously flour your counter surface and set your dough on top of it. Similarly flour your hands, a rolling pin, and the top of the dough. Use the rolling pin to gently roll the dough into a roughly scone shaped mass. It might be between 1 1/4 and 2 inches tall and somewhat smaller than a dinner plate. Transfer this carefully to a buttered cookie sheet. Once on the sheet, make gentle slices across the dough to make the number of scone servings you'd like have in the end. I'd say it works best to have either six or eight wedges.

Into the oven they go! Now, before you read the baking instructions, remember to start your cider and maple glaze. If you start as soon as the scones go into the over, your timing should work out well. Now, back to baking...

Bake at 375° F until you can see some hint of browning on top. Around 25-35 minutes. They might not look 100% done, but turn the oven off and let them stay warm inside while you finish up the glaze.

Crispin Honeycrisp Maple Glaze

This is the sweet sticky heart and soul of the recipe.

1/4 cup pure maple syrup (use whatever grade you have on hand, but I really prefer grade B)

1 cup Crispin Honeycrisp Cider

Pour both of the ingredients into a saucepan and simmer them slowly on the stove. Basically you're making a reduction or simple syrup.

The key is patience because it can look like nothing at all is happening. Don't give in to the temptation of turning the heat up too high because you do not want your syrup and cider reduction to crack or turn into caramel in the pot. Though it would still be tasty, you want this glaze liquid enough to coat the scones and impart rich apple cider and maple flavors throughout.

And that's exactly what you do. Once the syrup has reduced by 1/4 or even 1/3 *and* once you've cooled the scone after removing it from the oven, pour the reduction all over the circle of scone pieces. Messy but so so good.

Many many thanks to Amber for masterminding the recipe development and cooking. She's an expert baker, and I'm just a cider fan with a camera, but I think we worked together well.

Cider Review Doc's Draft Cranberry Spice

This is probably far later than anyone was expecting to see a review of a holiday cider, but I ran into this at a New York wine store randomly the other night. We happened to have a cold drizzly night not long after, and I felt like I could really enjoy something both fruity and spicy.

I've reviewed Doc's Draft and written a bit about their brand before, http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2013/01/cider-review-docs-draft-hard-apple-cider.html Here is a link to their cider page: http://wvwinery.com/cider/ but to stay up to date on their news, I'd suggest their Facebook page instead: https://www.facebook.com/docshardcider?fref=ts

The Cranberry Spice is their winter seasonal, and I looked for it casually for months before catching one in May. Here's what they say about their own special flavor, "A unique, hand-crafted holiday spiced hard cider. Made from pressed NY state apples, fresh cranberries and spices fermented with champagne yeast and malice acid to excite the action." I'm curious what the very unspecified spiced blend will include, let's find out.

ABV: 6%



Color and appearance: clear dark pink

When poured, this cider gives a brief appearance of a head that dissipates quickly. Lots of visible bubbles all along the glass at first but these too disappear quickly. The color is lovely.

Aroma: Spice! Cranberry and a surprising hint of wintergreen

The scents of baked goods, especially cinnamon, dominate the cider. I did not smell much apple or fruit, but I did note a secondary element of wintergreen in the spice. A nice wintery smell that does make me think of holiday celebration more than a cool spring night.

Sweet to dry: semi-sweet

The cranberry makes the sweetness very different from most ciders. The sweet and tart come together to keep it from being a true sweet. The Sweet-tart candies actually show some pleasant similarities here.

Flavors and drinking experience: punch-like, tart

This is a beverage more than a cider. Between the cranberry and the spice, there is not much apple flavor. Some cider drinkers would find this to be a fault. I think it merely specifies what this cider is. It is a cider-based punch. Very appropriate for winter parties.

Finish: sour candied apple

The finish on this cider continues to keep sweetness and tartness absolutely side by side and feels like a sour apple candy finish with a shadow underneath of minerals.

Pairs with: Creaminess! Tofurkey! Parties! Though I might have enjoyed this on the last cool night of spring, it truly is a winter cider. I'd drink it with foods with cream sauces. My husband's side of the family (shout out to the amazing Reeds, Laytons, and Troys who share this with me every year) makes Béarnaise sauce a special part of Christmas dinner and I think this could taste very very good with the rich herbed butteriness of Béarnaise sauce. For more info on this wonderful sauce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9arnaise_sauce

As far as ideal activities, take this to an office holiday party; it will be an excellent conversation starter and add something genuinely pleasant and bright to a mix that may or may not be satisfying on its own.

In Conclusion, the Doc's Draft Cranberry Spice's strength of cranberry and spice notes make it really unusually. So unusual that it tastes not very much like a cider, but tasty nonetheless. I enjoyed it for a treat, but I doubt I could make this a staple.

Double-Rising Sweet Cider Bread: A Story About One Very Forgiving Recipe

 

We’ve all heard what to do when life gives us lemons, but what about when life gives us some very dubious hard cider? This is the story of how I asked a well-tried beer bread recipe to endure a few modifications—and it came through for me like a champ.

The afternoon wasn’t getting any less rainy, and the thin, oversweetened Michelob Cider in the fridge wasn’t magically going to become tasty on its own, so it was time to salvage it with a simple backing project.

Here’s how my in-laws make beer bread. First pour a bottle of room temperature beer into bowl with 3 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/2 of a cup of granulated sugar, and a tablespoon each of baking powder and salt. Stir gently until it becomes a thick batter with no powder remaining. Preheat a loaf pan with about an ounce of butter in the bottom. Pour the dough into this hot loaf pan. This gives off the most satisfying sizzle when you spoon the dough into the hot buttered pan Then put a few pad of butter onto the top of the dough before closing the oven door. This lovely stuff gets baked at 375 for about 45 minutes.

Using the cider would be modification #1. I began by letting the guilty cider sit and sweat, reaching room temperature, while I gathered ingredients. As luck would have it, my loaf pan was missing (I like to think it’s partying somewhere with several single socks).  This led to modification #2: I used a brownie pan instead, which means a shorter baking time. The rain on my kitchen window reminded me that humidity can be the nemesis of rising bread, so I added a pinch more baking powder—modification #3. My dough then grew much thicker than cake batter but looser than typical bread dough. Into the oven it went, and a light-colored, cake-like bread emerged 35 minutes later.

Once it cooled, I cut it into generous portions. My husband and I ate it with sharp cheddar cheese, and he raved over the apple-y taste and surprisingly fluffy texture. Only then did I realize that I’d added that extra baking powder to what was already self-rising flour! Oops. Modification #4. My in-laws’ beer bread recipe is forgiving as my oft-dropped but always functional cell phone. My doubly-rising sweet cider bread was delicious. It would make a perfect substitution for coffee cake, with its soft crumbly texture and its breakfast-ready sweetness.