The Poison Apple Needs to Go" -- so I'm in the mood for an apple cider. I've also seen that I think they've been serving the apple cider with "crisps" made with apple cider instead of juice. It also seems to me that the word "apple" has been redefined as a cider/juice of some kind. Does anybody else see that? I'm hoping for one of those big, fat orangutans that I seem to see for sale at the zoo. No, you're wrong about the "apple" being a cider - there's nothing "cider" about this apple here. The word "apple" has been applied to ciders over and over and over and over and over again over the course of hundreds of years, so much so that now even most real apples sold in the stores are called "apples" because people have come to expect that a "mangini" or a "gala" or a "bosc" is a cider. Maybe someone will invent a word that they use for a drink based on apples as in "apple juice" to distinguish it from real cider, but so far it doesn't seem to be happening. This may also be a generational thing. That's what people like me think. It's like the generation of parents that took us to the museum and told us to point out the real things when we saw them -- like dinosaurs. They say, "Well, I see an orange, and that's clearly an orange." And a child says, "No, no, this one's called an apple." Parents look at each other and think, "What did I tell him about not getting the museum confused?" OK, I've been looking at this thread and wondering about the term "apple cider." In the U.S. I think cider is the colloquial term for a sparkling alcoholic beverage made from apples. From the looks of this thread, this is not a cider, this is a spiced apple drink like the one described above. Anyway, I tried to look up the term "apple cider" in several dictionaries, and the one word that keeps coming up is still the one I mentioned above, "applejack." In my opinion it's a better term for this drink than "cider." "Applejack," "Apple Cider" and "Apple Cider Vinegar" are all synonymous in the lexicon. "Applejack" is defined in my Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary (1969) as being "any alcoholic beverage of apple brandy, etc. made from fermented apples (esp. that of apple brandy and applejack), as in 'applejack'n'jack.'" In "Webster's New International Dictionary (Second College Edition)" Applejack is defined as being "Alcoholic liquor, especially apple brandy, made in and around New York State (1897) but obsolete by 1930." "Cider is a fermented drink made from crushed apples, generally by a process which involves an addition of yeast. Applejack is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented apple juice, and although it is usually the same thing as cider (except for the use of alcohol), the term cider is also used to describe applejack." So in the context of this thread cider refers to this beverage made from apples, whereas the term applejack refers to this alcoholic beverage. I've never heard this term used to describe a fermented cider, only the alcoholic version. A bit OT, but I thought that this thread was interesting in that it describes something that is not cider but it is called cider. Or rather, it is called cider but it is very far from cider. In the US, most apple beverages are fermented with yeast and aged with brandy or wine. Thus cider is usually wine or brandy with apple flavors, not the apple alone. That is, there is no such thing as an apple beverage fermented with yeast and aged with cider. It's more like apple brandy, or applejack, or fermented with yeast and aged with cider. Apple cider has been around for as long as apple trees. It is not an alcoholic drink. It is made from apples. Apple cider is fermented and sometimes naturally sweetened with honey. This can also mean, to me at least, that it has been fermented by the microorganisms in your mouth and then consumed. Well, I'm surprised how many people have never even heard of cider. I've been making it since I was a kid (before the 1970's). Then it would be aged in wood until it was carbonated. Now, of course, I go through a process that is very similar to cider but doesn't involve any of the fermentation that the original cider did. It's still in the fermentation stage of a drink being fermented by microorganisms, I guess. As for why I called this "cider," I just figured that since I made this from apples, then it should be called cider. I've made cider from other fruits and vegetables that were not apples. The taste was different than cider from apples. I guess I'd classify this as cider since it's made from apples. As for this apple brandy, which this is really is not, I figured that it should be called "applejack" since it's made from apples, even though it would be very hard to make it like that if you tried. I agree with you about the distinction. Cider is not an alcoholic beverage and applejack is. As in applejack a non alcoholic drink, but like a non alcoholic wine, it can and has had spirits added to it. I think for apples that are not used for eating, the term for that is simply cider (with or without the word brandy in it) depending on where you are. We don't call it apple. I'm confused about all the cider/apple-derived drink names. Is there one word for all of them? In the US, I'm pretty sure that the only cider that is made from apples is apple cider. As far as I know, apple brandy is something different. In any case, "cider" is definitely a wine - you can definitely make wine from cider. The word "cider" is never used to refer to apple brandy. I'd call the apple brandy I've tasted thus far applejack (and I'm pretty sure I've actually tasted this stuff, not just read about it somewhere). I guess that since I said that the brandy isn't cider, then cider and brandy are different products, they're just both made from apples. Like maybe there are apples that make cider and apples that make brandy. So, cider and brandy could be different, not simply different types of apples. When I think of apple brandy, I think of a cider that has been aged and distilled, to the point where it's in the same type of barrel as a whiskey and you can detect a slight whiskey-like odor in it. If I'm understanding the thread, it's not meant to be a cider (alcoholic) of apples, which is what is usually called "apple brandy". It is supposed to be apple brandy (like the one that's made in the US) that has been aged into the cider-like drink that goes by the name "applejack". And I guess you're right - you can also distill apple brandy and age it into a more "cidery" product. Or you can add it to cider to make it more apple-y. But the point is, the product isn't cider. It's just apple-derived. It's interesting that the terms "cider" and "cidery" aren't used in this way here. I suspect it's because there's no need to use such a distinction - cider just means alcoholic apple drink (as I understand it - I've never heard anyone who sells cider call it a cidery). So applejack is a strong alcoholic beverage and apple brandy is an alcoholic beverage that is not as strong, so there's no confusion with the cider terminology. You can make it from any sort of apple, regardless of whether it's for eating, just as cider is made from any sort of apple.