Meriam-Webster dictionary defines champagne cider as “a sparkling cider that is matured in vats and then fermented in bottles to produce effervescence”. My paternal grandmother, Helen S. Wright, includes two recipes for champagne cider and one recipe for cider champagne in her 1909 book, Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wines. All three recipes involve cider, spirits, honey or sugar, and fining with skim milk but no explanation is given for the different names. Photo Credit Wikipedia
Here is the first of my grandmother’s recipes for champagne cider in her own words:
“Champagne cider is made as follows: To five gallons of good cider put three pints of strained honey, or one and one-eighth pounds of good white sugar. Stir well and set it aside for a week. Clarify the cider with one-half gill of skimmed milk, or one teaspoonful of dissolved isinglass, and add one and one-half pints of pure spirits. After two or three days bottle the clear cider, and it will become sparkling. In order to produce a slow fermentation, the casks containing the fermenting liquor must be bunged up tight. It is a great object to retain much of the carbonic gas in the cider, so as to develop itself after being bottled.”
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Karen Meyers