Why Scottish cider converts like me head to Anstruther

After a youthful introduction to cider went wrong, Stephen Jardine rediscovered the pleasure of this traditional British drink

It didn’t start well. My first experience with alcohol produced my first hangover. It turns out many cans of cheap cider on an empty stomach at a tender age are not a good idea. After that, I avoided Britain’s oldest drink for a long time.

Along the way, I learned moderation but also the joys of beer, wine and various spirits. Cider was left in the past, like acne and the skin on custard as school dinners, a rite of passage but something I really didn’t want to encounter again.

Then in Cornwall, just before the pandemic, I passed a bucolic field full of apple trees on a beautiful sunny day and followed the sign into Polgoon Orchard and Vineyard. A guide explained the story of the cycle of the seasons as we walked through a meadow filled with trees already heavy with fruit. In the midst of that I was offered a tasting and everything changed.

Well-made cider is light, refreshing, delicious and actually tastes of apples (Picture: Matt Cardy) | Getty Images

The great cider revolution

This wasn’t the harsh, metallic headache juice from before. Instead it was light, refreshing, delicious and, crucially, actually tasted of apples. So I brought some home. Since then, I’ve been enjoying the great cider revolution.

Just as seasonal and local produce has changed food consumption, so an interest in story and provenance has boosted craft cider production. Last year UK cider sales topped £2 billion for the first time as low-alcohol varieties attracted younger drinkers and the big brands moved to more premium products.

It doesn’t get more premium than Burrow Hill Cider in Somerset. Last week I climbed to the tree on the top of the hill and looked down on fields where apple trees have been grown for more than 300 years. Across the lane in a farmyard filled with ramshackle machinery and sleepy collies, Julian Temperley has been making cider in the traditional way since the 1960s.

As I gazed at the ponies grazing in the sunny orchard, he appeared as if by magic at my side. “It’s been a good spring,” said the 80-year-old cider king before ambling off. Hearing that filled me with optimism. A good spring means strong blossom, great apples, a bumper harvest and then more wonderful cider.

I bought some to take home and a bottle of Cider Apple Brandy as well – the only variety made here in the UK. Burrow Hill Cider is almost impossible to find, tucked away down single-track lanes in a part of Somerset steeped in legend and folklore. That night I wasn’t even sure I’d been there. It all felt like a dream.

A place for cider pilgrims

Thankfully, you don’t have to brave the back roads of Somerset to be part of the cider revolution. Amazing things are happening here in Scotland with producers like Flemings Fife Cider and the Naughton Cider Company creating premium drinks using skills gained from Champagne and brewing.

You can try them all at Aeble in Anstruther which in 2021 became Scotland’s first bottle shop specialising in cider. If you are not yet a cider convert, that is the place to go.

Despite changing trends, two-thirds of UK cider is still drunk in June, July and August but that is fine. I’m remembering Julian Temperley’s nod to spring and thinking of hot days ahead, accompanied by the true taste of the great British summer.