LCBO Food & Drink Summer 2016

DRINK  SEASONAL

C I DE R S E L E C T I ON S

BY STEPHEN BEAUMONT  •  PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES TSE

HUGELY POPULAR, CIDERS OFFER A WEALTH OF OPTIONS—TO SIMPLIFY YOUR CHOICES, WE’VE GROUPED THEM TOGETHER BY STYLE SO THAT IF YOU LIKE ONE BRAND, YOU’LL KNOWWHICH OTHERS TO TRY.

Once upon a time, we would order “white wine” without specifying whether we wanted Char- donnay, Viognier or Sauvignon Blanc, call for a “whisky and soda” and not even mention whether we desired the national spirit of Canada, the United States, Ireland or Scotland. And in the days when most big name brands shared a similar flavour profile, we’d belly up to the bar and announce our drink order with but a single, solitary word: “beer.”    It’s a bit like that these days with cider. Although listings at the LCBO have in recent years mush- roomed from a mere handful of ciders to more than 40, awareness of the beverage has not grown apace. To many consumers, perhaps the majority, cider is simply fermented apple juice, sometimes flavoured with the juices of other fruits, but otherwise mostly the same. It’s an impression that could scarcely be further from the truth.    Today’s ciders are anything but a one-size-fits- all proposition, arriving in a rich mosaic of flavours and aromas, from sweet and robustly apple-ish to dry and pleasingly musty, sometimes bearing flavours from mixed berries or citrus to a spiciness evocative of apple pie filling. It’s a diversity that makes navigating the cider aisle a very different proposition than it was even a handful of years ago.    Fortunately, just as beer, wine and spirits may be separated into styles and sub-styles, so too can cider be grouped by family, allowing apple aficio- nados to experiment broadly without the risk of losing their way. To get started, consider the fol- lowing seven broadly based categories.

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