White cider

Cider in the United Kingdom is widely available at pubs, off licences, and grocery stores. It has been made in regions of the country where cider apples were grown since Roman times; in those regions it is intertwined with local culture.

The UK is the major producer of cider in the EU and has enjoyed a renaissance in the 21st century with a greater diversity of producers, brands and consumers than ever before.

Since the early Roman era, dessert and cider apples had been spreading out of the Mediterranean and naturally would have eventually been brought to Gaul, a province of the Roman Empire after the defeat of Vercingetorix in 46 BC by Caesar, and Franconia, parts of which would have formed Magna Germania. Much later the northern part of Gaul, heavily populated by a mix of Gauls, Romans, and other Celts, became Normandy and the domain of the lords that grew apples on their fiefdoms. The Normans were most certainly a vector for the arrival of continental apples to England-the word ”cider” derives etymologically from the 12th-century French word "cidre"-but older accounts tell a different story. Saxon chronicles before their conquest of the Britons mention cider-like drinks and also mention the production of a drink called æppelwīn, an ancient cognate of the Modern German ’apfelwein’’, both literally meaning a wine or alcohol made from apples. Though it is unknown if there is any relation between the ancient drink and the modern German product at least one account indicates the drink was a luxury item that only the wealthy could afford. There is also evidence from the mid-late Anglo-Saxon period of the growth of orchards before, during, and after Christianisation of this group and their ceremonial use, most famously the custom of Wassail at Yuletide, and it is known that monks grew apples in their gardens. There is also more recent evidence that indicates that the Romans were growing apples and pears in their stay in Britain, and one of the Vindolanda tablets indicates that the largely Asturian derived guardsmen near Hadrian's Wall, men with an apple and cider culture predating their own conquest by Rome, were seeking the best apples that could be found locally.

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