Now that is better!

It was chilly here in Bondi last night. Well it is all relative I suppose! After a long day at the computer I needed some cider!! But what to go with it. I looked in the fridge and Pitango spring lamb soup with red wine, roasted garlic and rosemary was there waiting for me. It said "serves two" on the packet, two what, children? The soup was delicious, thank you Mr Pitango and my wonderful partner for doing the shopping. Thanks, Jules!

So to the cider, I had been a little disappointed with the Westons Pear Cider. It just didn't quite do it for me. So to the real cider, apple cider. As you can see from the photo, it is a lovely almost burnt golden colour. At 6.5% alcohol it looks to be a serious cider. It certainly smells of fermented apples. In the mouth it is very good. It combines touches of sweetness with a lovely bitter sweet character. There are four catagories of cider apple sweet, sharp, bittersweet and bittersharp. I will go into that in more detail soon.

This cider is very good. Sweet and bitter with a lovely lingering finish. I really enjoyed this medium bodied beauty. The soup was great also.

8.5 apples out of 10.

Westons Premium Organic Pear Cider.

On the quest to find the most ciderlious of all ciders the, well, the quest continued tonight. Tonight I took the cider and sushi mission a little further. We went to Ten Japanese which is our local restaurant. I love that place, the best sushi and sashimi in town.

I took a bottle of Westons Premium Organic Pear Cider. Westons started producing ciders in 1880 in the Herefordshire village of Much Marcle, what a great name. Hereforshire is on the board of England and Wales, on the English side. Westons have some pretty amazing figures "Westons Cider employs more than 130 people, produces over 30 different ciders and perries, sells approximately 28 million pints a year and has a turnover of over £24 million." That is a serious business!

So to the pear cider. Firstly the words "Premium" and "Reserve" are words that are very over used in the liquor industry. This "Premium" Pear cider is not premium. I am sure Westons must keep their best ciders back in the UK. I did not manage to get a photo of a glass of the cider, I did not take my camera to Ten Japanese. The colour is a deep dark golden, surprisingly dark for a pear cider. This lead me to think that the cider was going to have a touch of sweetness. I was right. This 6% alcohol cider has a fairly big wack of residual sugar. There are also touches of savoury characters and a little bitterness right in the background. Overall I was fairly disappointed with this organic pear cider.

7 pears out of 10.