Cider
a beverage made from the juice or sap of apples. Apples contain a large percentage of juice which may be pressed out by passing the apples through a cider mill. It is considered that red apples make better cider than green or yellow ones. A bushel of apples yields about a gallon of cider. Fresh cider contains yeast plants, resident perhaps on the skin of the apple, which attack the sugar of the juice at once, converting it into alcohol. For this process, known as fermentation, see article on YEAST. The longer cider stands, the more of its sugar is converted into alcohol and the sharper the cider becomes. Hard cider is simply cider in which considerable sugar has been changed into alcohol by the process of fermentation. If cider be bottled to keep yeast out, and be boiled to kill yeast within, it will keep fresh for a long time. The making of cider has been inherited from England and Normandy. In the production of cider New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana lead. The United States presses from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 barrels a year, according to the apple crop. Wormy apples and fruit not salable are usually put through the cider mill after the hurry of marketing is over. A large share of American cider is converted into vinegar. Cider was formerly a more popular beverage than now. In Snowbound Whittier speaks twice of the cider mug:
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.