Apple cider

Apple cider (also called sweet cider or soft cider) is the name used in the United States and parts of Canada for an unfiltered, unsweetened, non-alcoholic beverage made from apples. Though typically referred to simply as "cider" in those areas, it is not to be confused with the alcoholic beverage known as cider throughout most of the world, called hard cider (or just cider) in North America.

Once widely pressed at farmsteads and local mills, apple cider is easy and inexpensive to make. It is typically opaque due to fine apple particles in suspension and generally tangier than conventional filtered apple juice, depending on the apples used. Today, most cider is treated to kill bacteria and extend its shelf life, but untreated cider can still be found. In either form, apple cider is a seasonally produced drink of limited shelf-life that is typically available only in autumn. It is traditionally served on the Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and various New Year's Eve holidays, sometimes heated and mulled. It is the official state beverage of New Hampshire.

Although the term cider is used for the fermented alcoholic drink in most of the world, it refers to fresh "apple cider" in the United States and much of Canada; hard cider is used there instead for the alcoholic drink.

While some states specify a difference between apple juice and cider, the distinction is not well established across the U.S.Massachusetts makes an attempt to at least differentiate fresh cider and processed apple juice: according to its Department of Agricultural Resources, "apple juice and apple cider are both fruit beverages made from apples, but there is a difference between the two. Fresh cider is raw apple juice that has not undergone a filtration process to remove coarse particles of pulp or sediment. Apple juice is juice that has been filtered to remove solids and pasteurized so that it will stay fresh longer. Vacuum sealing and additional filtering extend the shelf life of the juice." This still leaves unfiltered apple juice that is no longer raw in a gray area, presumably cider but not labeled as such. The addition of sweeteners or reconstitution from concentrate are left even grayer.

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