Cider Saturday: Winter Harvest and Cidre de Glace

When I was working on the cider book, all the pieces fit together like a puzzle.  The English, French, Spanish, and new American traditions all related to each other and to historical antecedents.  And then there’s this weird thing in Quebec called cidre de glace, or ice cider. It is as thick as maple syrup and nearly as sweet, but balanced by intense acidity.  It comes in tall, narrow bottles, and it’s best for  sipping after a meal or as a warming tipple by the fire. 

If you’re looking to see where it fits in the world, you need to cast your eyes to the vines.  The inspiration for ice cider is eiswein, an old beverage that lived a sort of spectral existence dependent on the whims of mother nature.  The first eiswein was probably made in 1794 in Franconia, when an unseasonably early frost struck.  It must have been a hell of a chill, because it lasted long enough that the vintners decided to press their grapes as they found them …