J.K.'s Scrumpy Hard Cider

I may have walked past it every other day for years on its shelf at Key Food on Atlantic: not a prepossessing supermarket, but very useful for basics like organic milk and butter, Scotch Brite sponges and...you get it.

On Friday I decided to buy some beer because I was planning to make and eat something spicy and Vietnamese-ish for supper (never happened, another story), and as I walked out with my six pack of Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas (which will sit until Vince helps me drink them), I saw this bottle of cider on a shelf with artisanal beers. Hm.

I have a thing about cider. All based on apple-y mouthful of what was probably Strongbow when I was a teenager, in South Africa, and fueled, more importantly, by Literature: the English countryside was overflowing with cider, pronounced Soider. From stone jars. Cool from the cellar. Clean, wholesome drunkeness.

I bought this tall pretty bottle, thinking it may be as horrid as something that I bought last year for twice the money. Bitter. Thin. Nasty.

At home I opened it, and, as I've written in another post, it was delicious. So delicious that in the last three days I have bought two more bottles. When I like something I focus on it absolutely, so I reckon I'm focusing.

It tastes like apples, see. It is sweet, but a creamy-dry-sweet. It has a barely discernable effervescence. It is unfiltered, like my favourite sakes. So slightly cloudy, and somehow full and not lean in the mouth. Then there is something else: a Calvadossy depth. At 6% alcohol there's a buzz, certainly....and this is a drink, problematically, that needn't be sipped. You drink deep draughts, as you would on a bright northern night after the hay has been brought in and before the storm of summer's end.

Or while watering your terrace.

J.K.'s Scrumpy It is made in Michigan. It is organic. It is yummy.

No, I did not receive any free Scrumpy.