According to Meriam-Webster dictionary, champagne cider is “a sparkling cider that is matured in vats and then fermented in bottles to produce effervescence”. Perhaps this is what my paternal grandmother, Helen S Wright, meant when she gave a recipe for the drink in her 1909 book, Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wines. A recipe from the Internet includes apples, cinnamon sugar, brandy, apple cider, and champagne and bears a vague resemblance to my grandmother’s recipe. Other recipes for the drink leave out the hard liquor or swap it for another such as vodka. Photo Credit Amanda Slater Wikimedia Commons
Her is the recipe for cider champangne in the words of my Grandmother:
Five gallons of good [apple] cider, one quart spirit, one and one-quarter pounds honey or sugar. Mix, and let them rest for a fornight, then fine with one gill of skimmed milk. This, put up in champagne bottles, silvered, and labelled, has often been sold for champagne. It opens very sparkling.
This recipe is preceded by one for apple cider but the kind of apples is not specified.
To buy Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wines by Helen S. Wright from Amazon.com Click Here.
