Made by: Tom Oliver

Made in: Herefordshire

Style: Dry

ABV: 6%

Carbonation: Still

Bought: Good Spirits Co. Wine & Beer, Glasgow

Price: £3 (500ml bottle)

Producer’s website: Oliver’s

No better place to start a blog on properly made cider than with one of Tom Oliver’s fine offerings. If you start digging into the fragrant world of well-made cider, it doesn’t take long before the name Tom Oliver starts cropping up. An ex-roadie and tour manager of The Proclaimers who somehow got into making minimalist ciders, he sounds like a seriously interesting dude; check out this article in imbibe for a flavour of the man. He has even been described by respected booze writer Pete Brown as ‘simply the greatest cidermaker in the world’.

Oliver is probably most famous for his perry but his ciders are held in special regard by the good folks that like their cider as unadulterated as possible. A strict self-proclaimed ‘non-interventionist’, he takes pride in not doing anything that doesn’t need done and relying on patience and time to let nature take its course and turn the simplest of ingredients into the most complex of flavours. That includes relying on natural fermentation using the yeasts naturally occurring in the apple skins, rather than adding a cultured yeast. It takes longer and it’s less controllable, but the results can be worth it if you get it right.

The real skill is in blending, however, as Oliver explains in that imbibe article – and tannins play a big part. ‘It’s fairly easy to blend acids and sweetness. But you never quite know what the tannins will do’, he says.

Enough of the backstory then – even if I do think that learning a bit about a cider before drinking it can immeasurably enhance the experience – what about the cider?

It’s Oliver’s Fine Cider Traditional Dry (6% abv), defiantly old school with none of that crowd-pleasing sweetness often associated with cider. Cider in its purest form, stripped bare. At £3 for a 500ml bottle, it’s a steal for something with so much soul in it.

TASTING NOTES, AFTER A FASHION:

Very pale, insipid yellow gold in the glass with a slight murky haze. Easy to see why Strongbow fans might scoff that it looks like the piss of a reasonably well hydrated human with a mild yeast infection.

On the nose it’s an eyebrow-raising shock to the system. A heavy, musty yeastiness up front that gives way to an aggressive sharp acidity and absolutely no sweetness whatsoever. No quarter asked or given. Coax it encouragingly around the glass, give it a few more deep sniffs and it remains resolutely unforgiving. This is clearly not a cider that’s going to meet you half way.

In the mouth it’s another full frontal assault with a dryness that fair draws your jaws, as we say in this part of the world. Mouth-puckering is how I believe non-Scots would describe it. But let it swirl around a bit in the mouth and the magic slowly, almost reluctantly, begins to reveal itself – and it’s all down to that balance that Oliver refers to.

Get over the initial arse-cheek clenching bone dryness and it starts dawning on you that the acidity and tannins and fruit in this cider are just in sublime harmony. A few more sips and you’re really starting to get it. The fruit is there, just not where you expected it. In fact, nothing is where you expected it, but it all slowly resolves into a frankly remarkable nectar that is exquisitely balanced and unexpectedly moreish. As you work your way through the bottle, something is revealed to you. It’s not entirely clear what it is, but it’s an epiphany of sorts.

There is both a sparse, austere beauty and a towering elegance to this little glug of fermented apple juice.

It occurs to me as I polish off the dregs of the bottle that I may have peaked too early on my adventure in honest cider, but that’s a cross I’m happy to bear.

5️⃣/5️⃣