A very old beverage making a big comeback in America.

Hard cider, once the young nation’s favorite drink, has become one of the fastest-growing types of alcoholic beverages available in the land. Until recently, many of those ciders came from England, but the real home of cider is Normandy in France, where cider remains the usual beverage with meals.

Today, however, producers from tiny microcideries like Ace Cider in Sonoma County to giant E&J Gallo with its Hornsby brand are turning out the refreshing beverage. It’s joining microbrewed beers offered on tap in hip bars where the trendy gather.

Alcoholic cider has an interesting history in America. Before prohibition, "cider" meant the lightly alcoholic fermented beverage that was a standard drink for Americans who lived where apple trees flourished and wine grapes didn’t — most of the country. During Prohibition, the traditional name was hijacked for unfermented apple juice, so now the alcoholic version is labeled hard cider.

Many Americans have tried the beverage without knowing it: Boone’s Farm, the pop wine of the ‘70’s, was a wine made from apples, though much higher in alcohol than today’s popular hard ciders. It also was almost still, whereas the hard ciders that are making the big buzz today are lightly carbonated like beer.

How it’s mad.

Hard cider is made much like wine. In the purest form, apples are crushed pressed to generate apple juice. Then yeast is added to ferment its sugar and convert it to alcohol.

Apples contain less sugar than grapes, perhaps 10 percent instead of 23 percent, so the resulting beverage contains less alcohol. But also contains pectin and other solids and has to be filtered carefully to produce a clear beverage.

Fresh apple juice also oxidizes easily and turns brown, so deoxidizing sulfur dioxide is generally added in processing as it is with wine. Some cider is pasteurized for stability before bottling, but just as canned orange juice doesn’t taste like fresh, this affects the cider’s flavor.

Most cider contains some added sweetener — perhaps 1-2 percent — plus carbon dioxide to give it the bubbles. The best cider is sweetened with fresh apple juice, but it can also be sweetened with other flavors for specialty ciders.

Interestingly, you can make a similar beverage from pears, apple’s cousins. The English call it perry, and Ripple, a classical pop wine, is made from pears. The Ace pear cider only uses pear juice for flavor, however. It’s not made from pears.

How to buy cider

Cider is sold, drunk and priced much like beer, but it’s taxed more heavily like wine even though it’s much lower in alcohol. About half of the hard cider consumed in the United States is bottled; the rest is sold on draft. Connoisseurs naturally prefer the draft version, as they do for beer, in part because it’s not pasteurized and fresher if handled properly.

Cider is typically also offered in bottles as well as larger containers, though some brands are bottled, even made, like sparkling wines. All are best consumed within a few months. Brands of cider available in the Truckee Meadows include HardCore hard cider and Wyler’s pear cider. They’re available at Ben’s Discount Liquor and many supermarkets.

Visit a cidery

Visitors to California’s wine country can also visit a premium cidery and taste its products in a friendly pub. Ace Cider Company north of Sebastapol on the Gravenstein highway produces superb cider from local apples.

Ace is the brainchild of English-born Jeffrey House, who also imports English and Belgian beers. The Ace ciders are made from fresh apple juice, are not pasteurized and are sweetened with fresh juice.

Ace produces four ciders, though it sometimes offers others in its pub. The basic apple cider is good with food or on a warm summer afternoon. The pear is an apple cider with fresh pear juice added for a sprightly fruity flavor, while the berry cider is slightly sweeter and contains raspberry, blackberry and strawberry juices. The fourth cider contains local honey.

Visitors can taste the ciders (a sampler of four is $2) and see part of the plant at the Ace in the Hole Pub. The pub, which also serves basic pub grub, is open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. For information, call (707) 829-1101 or visit www.acecider.com.

Where to drink it

If you’re interested in trying hard cider, or if you’re already cider aficionado just looking for a place to wet your whistle, here are some pubs in town that offer this trendy beverage:

• Silver Peak Restaurant and Brewery, 124 Wonder St., offers HardCore brand apple cider on draft for $3.25 per glass.

• Great Basin Brewery, 846 Victorian Ave., Sparks, carries bottles of the Canadian-made Wyder’s Pear Cider for $3 each.

To make cider

Rob Bates, owner of The Reno Homebrewer, says that unlike beer, no special equipment is needed to make hard cider. Follow these simple steps to whip up a batch at home. For every gallon of apple juice, add 1/4 ounce (7 grams) of brewer’s yeast or wine yeast for a drier cider. Allow to ferment for one week. For sparkling cider, wait until after cider has fermented. Then add 1/2 teaspoon of sugar per each 12 ounce bottle, then cap. The sugar will add fizz. The Reno Homebrewer is at 2335 Dickerson Road. Call 329-2537.

Return to Franson's wine page in Travel Tastes.