The dictionary tells us that cider is a fermented or unfermented drink made from fruit, usually apples. My paternal grandmother, Helen S. Wright, devoted considerable space to various aspects of making cider in her book, Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wine, published in 1909. Most of her recipes relied on apples, as expected, but one used cherries, another included only 2-3 broken raisins, and a third contained no fruit at all. She called this third, fruitless cider “western cider” . Photo Credit Wikipedia
Here is the recipe for western cider in the words of my grandmother:
To one pound of sugar, add one-half ounce of tartaric acid, two tablespoonfuls of good yeast. Dissolve the sugar in one quart of warm water: put all in a gallon jug, shake it well, fill the jug with pure cold water, let it stand uncorked twelve hours, and it is fit for use.
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