Fruit Ciders

Ciders made from pears is called perry, but a lot of stuff out there on the market today are labeled “Pear Cider.” What does that mean?

Due to a loophole in the US, some ciders fall under the FDA requirements to put the ingredients on their labels. Reading the label of Original Sin’s Pear Cider, it reads “hard cider, pear juice, yeast, malic acid and sulfiates.” To me, this means that they fermented apple juice, stopped the fermentation, and then added pear juice to it to give it flavor and sweeten it a bit.

Why would they do that? Pears that make the best perry are not really grown in quantities, so this process would make it easier to produce at a lower cost.

However, this may not be the only reason. On my trip to Wandering Aengus Ciderworks, they showed us some cherry juice that they had. They said that they had attempted to ferment it as a cider, but that it tasted horrible, so they planned on adding the juice to already fermented apple juice in hopes that it would make a cherry cider they found worthy of selling.

In fact, on January 22, 2010, they recently posted this on their facebook page:

“Found a great blend for Pear Cider (Fermented cider from apples with added pear juice). To my knowledge this will be the only Pear Cider in the country made from just apples (about 15 varieties) and pears (2 varieties), no flavors added…

Perry did not make the grade though, not enough acidity and flavor. Next year we will try to find true Perry pears, they have the acidity and sugars required to make a high quality Perry.”

There are many other flavored ciders out there, including peach, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and many more.