Made by: Christian Drouin

Made in: Normandy

Style: Dry

ABV: 4.5%

Carbonation: Lightly Sparkling

Bought: Good Spirits Co. Wine & Beer, Glasgow

Price: £6.20 (750ml bottle)

Producer’s website: Christian Drouin

The French get a lot of things right when it comes to food and drink. Cider is definitely one of them. Unlike the UK where we’re happy to label any old dross as cider, if you want to call something cider in France it has to be made from 100% apples. Simples.

So when you’re relatively new to the whole 100% apple juice thing, as I am, it makes finding interesting ciders a piece of piss: if it’s French, it’s game on. (Having said that, finding 100% juice cider in Glasgow where I live is a hell of a lot harder than it should be. My current favourite outlet is The Good Spirits Company in the city centre which does a cracking but limited range of banging ciders.)

Christian Drouin is, by rights, a Calvados company and that’s what its best known for. Of course, to make Calvados you first have to make cider before you can distil it. Would seem churlish not to save some of it for the cider heads.

The company first planted cider-apple trees in 1960 (with a view to making Calvados) and eventually got into producing cider and perry. Now it produces a limited quantity of bottled cider every year crafted from the most highly-flavoured apple varieties. Interestingly (to me, at any rate), the apples are grated rather than crushed, milled or scratted. Then they’re left to macerate for several hours which allows the cider to acquire a distinctive colour and smooths the tannins.

Drouin offers a pasteurised Brut (dry) version and a Demi-sec (medium dry) unpasteurised version. Alas, I’ve only got the pasteurised one for this evening’s session.

TASTING NOTES, AFTER A FASHION:

Pop the cork, get it in the tumbler and it looks for all the world like apple juice. Deep, bright gold with just a touch of fizz to it which dies rapido.

On the nose it’s one thing and one thing only: candy apple. But a good candy apple, one of those you used to get years ago where the candy was thin and crisp and stuck to your fillings and the apple was ripe and fresh and crunchy.

In the mouth it’s more candy apple but with much, much less sweetness than the aroma suggests. But there is still a bit of sweetness there; it’s not dry by the standards of many dry UK ciders. The low alcohol content (4.5%) means its exceptionally light and maybe a little thin for a lot of purposes but it would work a treat on a wee Saturday afternoon picnic in the park when you were still hoping to get something done on Saturday night.

Watery Calvados is what springs to mind which isn’t meant to be as critical as it sounds. It has an elegance about it with a brightness and depth of flavour that make it easy to drink but with enough about it to stop you getting bored of it half way through the 750ml bottle. (You’re probably meant to share the bottle, but that’s not the Honest Cider way, I’m afraid.)

3️⃣/5️⃣