After consulting the 1909 book Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wines by my paternal grandmother, Helen S. Wright, I am confused about the difference between champagne cider and cider champagne. Grandmother includes two recipes for champagne cider and one recipe for cider champagne and all three recipes contain cider, spirits, honey or sugar, and fining with skim milk. There are a few differences regarding other ingredients and the procedures seem slightly different but the distinction is still unclear in my mind. Meriam-Webster dictionary provides no definition for cider champagne and this one for champagne cider; “a sparkling cider that is matured in vats and then fermented in bottles to produce effervescence”. So how is is cider champagne different? For the recipe for Cider Champagne click here. Photo Credit Wikipedia
Here is the second recipe for champagne cider in the words of my grandmother:
One hogshead good pale vinous cider, three gallons proof spirit(pale), fourteen pounds honey or sugar. Mix, and let them remain together in a temperate situation for one month; then add one quart orange-flower water, and fine it down with one-half gallon skimmed milk. This will be very pale; and a similar article, when bottled in champagne bottles, silvered and labelled, has been often sold to the ignorant for champagne. It opens very brisk, if managed properly.
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