Cider in the United States

In the United States, the definition of cider is usually more broad than in Europe, specifically Ireland and the UK. There are two types: one being the traditional fermented product, called hard cider, and the second sweet or soft cider.

The history of cider in the United States is very closely tied to the history of apple growing in the country. Most of the 17th- and 18th-century emigrants to America from the British Isles drank hard cider and its variants: water was not a trusted source of hydration and so beer, ale, fruit brandy, and cider were used as more sanitary substitutes. Apples were one of the earliest known crops in the English-speaking New World; ships' manifests show young saplings being carefully planted in barrels and many hopeful farmers bringing bags of seed with them, with the first settlers headed to what is now the Southeast. Within thirty-five years of the settlement of Jamestown in 1607, the land was put to the plow to grow tobacco which provided a source of revenue for the colonists and made British settlement a success in the New World after several failed attempts. However, other edible cash crops were planted, like rice, maize, and apples, since such would have had value in the markets of growing cities like London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Cardiff.

The earliest known provision for cider making is believed to have been carried on the Mayflower itself in 1620. Halfway through the journey, the ship was caught in a storm and one of its beams cracked badly enough to warrant the consideration of turning back to England. "The great iron screw", taken from a cider press, helped brace the beam to keep the ship from breaking up and did it long enough to make it to the New World. Nine days after the Puritans landed (and perhaps in great thanks for having survived the journey at all) a man by the name of William Blackstone planted the first apple trees in the New England colonies. The first recorded shipment of honeybees to America, important for the pollination of apples, is recorded in 1622 in Virginia. In New England, John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632, recorded his tenants paying their rent on Governor's Island in two bushels of apples a year. In 1634 Lord Baltimore instructed settlers of the new colony of Maryland to carry across the sea "kernalls of peares and apples, especially of Pipins, Pearemains, and Deesons for maykinge thereafter of Cider and Perry."

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