4whole cinnamon sticks
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
8 whole allspice berries
orange peel from 1 orange
lemon peel from 1 lemon
1/2 cup maple syrup
6 cups apple cider or freshly squeezed apple juice
apple slices and orange twists, to serve
How to make the Cider
In a medium saucepan, place all ingredients.
Pour in the maple syrup and apple cider, bring to an almost-boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for around 30 minutes.
Remove from the heat and serve
Extra tips to make it special
comforting cups
in mugs with apple slices
You can also add rum for an adults-only version.
Feel free to add orange twists to it as well!
Anise is also good for the cup of cider!
Feel free to place cranberries in the drink!
Experiment with different combos of fruit, spices, etc.
On the twelfth day of drawings, my true love gave to me…
A Holly Jolly Christmas with a Cup of Cheer!
Thank you to @jokerislandgirl32 for your suggestion of “They have a holly jolly Christmas…meaning they have a cup of cheer!”! With a bit of liquid courage from the mulled cider they were drinking, Alessandra boldly pulled Zach in for a passionate kiss! Definitely a lovely Christmas for them both!
I’ve never drawn Zach and Alessandra kiss before, so I’m so happy that I got to make this piece! I hope you guys enjoy today’s drawing! Thank you so much for following my 12 Days of Drawings! I have so much fun doing them every year! Can’t wait to do them again next Christmas!
Half gallon of apple cider, 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 cloves and 3 star anise, 1 orange juice and peels and all. Heated up and simmered for a few minutes (our first batch foamed and boiled over haha) strain and serve 😋 Added a berry wine to the second batch and they're both so good!! I've been meaning to try it for years but always got intimidated but it's way easier than I thought! Please try it out!
(Also the spices get stronger the longer you let it steep so each serving tastes better and better!)
Christmas Fayres are big events for the population of Sodor, and there are many of them across the island throughout December.
Despite the number, Rheneas, Edward, and Dowager Hatt play key roles in the planning of every single one. Due to Rheneas and Edward's rail schedules, it isn't always possible for all three to attend each one together. But when they do, you can usually find them dressed in Christmas finery close to the mulled wine/cider stall.
Mulled cider is a seasonal favorite of mine, and as the resident Drinks Czar of the household I have come up with what I think is possibly the best mulled cider of all time. Good for fucking whenever honestly it's never a bad time for mulled cider. I've done my best to adapt the recipe for overseas folks as well.
This recipe makes 6-8 servings.
Ingredients:
2 quarts/2 liters of Apple Cider (usually called "unfiltered apple juice" outside the US)
an orange, sliced into 1/2 inch or 1 cm rounds
half a lemon, sliced same as the orange
a heaping spoonful or 15-20 grams of brown sugar or jaggery. Use a soup spoon to measure, this doesn't need to be super exact.
muthafuckin SPICES:
1 cinnamon stick (ours are like 6 inches long, so if yours are short use 2)
1/2 tsp or 1/2 gram coriander seeds*
1/2 tsp or 2 grams black peppercorns*
7 whole cloves (always use the ones that still have the little balls on top)
Optional spices:
allspice (I do four shakes of the ground stuff)
a star anise (I recommend this one! A single star should do it)
cardamom (I don't personally but you def can)
mace (a few shakes of ground mace will be good)
nutmeg (grind a little bit onto the cider after you serve it)
*please note that these should be equal amounts in volume. I measured the weight on my kitchen scale, but it seemed to have a bit of a hard time giving me an accurate reading. I did my best guys.
Instructions:
Gather your spices. Crush up all your whole spices (EXCEPT the cloves) into smaller pieces in a mortar and pestle. If you don't have a mortar and pestle, you can use a spice grinder (very sparingly) or just crush them in a bowl that can take a bit of a beating without breaking. You could also just substitute with ground spices, in which case skip to step 3.
In a pot big enough to hold all your cider and not boil over, toast your crushed spices and the cloves over medium-low heat for 3 minutes, stirring them around occasionally. "Medium-low" for me means "enough heat to maintain a nice boil".
Put your cider on the counter next to you. In the same pot as step 2, add in your ground spices and toast them for no more than 10 seconds. Pour the cider into the pot.
Add in your orange, lemon, and sugar and stir them around until all the slices separate and the sugar starts to dissolve. Cover the pot and bring it up to a simmer. This takes ~10 minutes for me.
Once it's simmering, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for 30 minutes. Keep the pot covered, but it's a good idea to check on it every once in a while to make sure it doesn't boil over.
This is the hardest step: let that bitch sit. Turn the heat off and let the cider sit covered for at least an hour, preferably two. Just shove it to the back of the stove and don't touch it. I like to start making the cider just after lunch so it's ready for dinner, but you can also make this overnight for breakfast.
Reheat the cider by bringing it up to a low simmer again before shutting the heat off. Fish out the citrus and serve in mugs. Grind some nutmeg on top if you want. You can also add a shot or two of brandy if you want it boozy. Enjoy!
Apple cider is a bizarre thing, in that it is only legal to buy it from the people who grew the apples and pressed them themselves.
You may say "Jisk, I see apple cider in the supermarket right here!", and I am here to tell you that the supermarket is full of profane lies.
I am not talking about hard cider (alcoholic), which does not taste like apples and thus is sorta lies, but a perfectly respectable beverage for those who like their alcohol beer-like but non-beer, which I do not. And that's all I'm going to say about hard cider.
No, I'm talking about this.
This substance is made by the archdevil Geryon, lord of deceits and heresies, in his orchard of snakes and lies, in order to convince people that apple cider is just pretentious apple juice.
And it works, because supermarket apple cider is just pretentious apple juice. It is cider that has taken behind the woodshed and shot, and its corpse carried around in the style of Weekend At Bernie's, paraded as the real thing. It is not the real thing.
This is the real thing:
This is Smit Farms cider, made from apples grown in Smit Farms orchards and pressed in mechanical presses owned by Smit Farms, hosted on the premises owned by Smit Farms and probably on the orchard grounds itself, then bottled by Smit Farms, also on the premises of Smit Farms. This cider is then sold either at their shop next to the Smit Farms orchard (fairly inaccessible) or at a Smit Farms booth in a range of farmstands within driving distance (in this case, mostly or totally in California), one of which is where I buy it. This is the good stuff.
The fact that it is from Smit Farms specifically is irrelevant, but other than replacing the name 'Smit Farms' with something else like 'Derby Orchards' or 'Oxford University Gardens', the good stuff all fits that precise description. To do otherwise is illegal. (At least in the US of A. It seems to be rare in other countries too, and I don't know for sure.)
The core problem is pasteurization. Pasteurization turns cider into apple juice. If you're careful about it and do the lowest temperature allowed for a brief burst of heat (flash pasteurization), you'll keep the ghost of the flavor of proper cider. But only a ghost of it.
And you are legally required to pasteurize cider before sale, unless you are a farm doing farm things to your farm products on your farm premises, which gets you an exemption from a great many United States laws, this being one of them. And so, if you wish to drink good cider, you must be a locavore for the day you do the shopping.
And it's so fucking worth it. I promise you. You know how they say that compared to real beer, Budweiser is 'fucking close to water'? Apple juice is the Bud Lite of cider. Real cider has the same relationship to it that Guinness has to Bud. Everyone should try it.
Now, I will admit it has drawbacks.
The first one is that it's usually unfiltered, and filtering it does actually make it worse. So you need to shake the bottle around a bit before pouring. It's much less intrusive than citrus pulp, though.
The second is that if you leave it in the fridge for a month it will have gone very slightly alcoholic. (I don't know what ABV.) This does have a solution - cider freezes well. Leave it in the freezer for a year if need be, then melt it over a day on the counter and stick it back in the fridge.
QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE FOR THE CIDER SNOB
"Jisk, how can I tell if the cider is the good stuff?"
Unfortunately, you will usually have to ask, and the answer will often be 'it isn't' even if you're at an orchard. Check if the label says 'pasteurized' in any form - if so it is the knockoff type. If you don't see that, the question you want to ask is "Do you press and bottle it yourself?"; if the answer is yes, they will almost certainly know, and only if the answer is yes is it the good stuff. You can also ask "Is it pasteurized?", and this may appear on the label, but there are weaselly ways to say it's not when it is and well-intentioned people can be honestly wrong about this being good enough.
"Should I get the good stuff for cooking with?"
It is almost certainly not worth it. You'll mostly denature it in cooking and that will remove most of the flavor benefits. For this I would go with supermarket cider or somewhat boiled-down boring apple juice. Some recipes may benefit but that's beyond my cooking skill to predict.
"Should I get the good stuff for mulling?"
Personally I cannot tell the difference once it is mulled. If the effort and money to get the good stuff are cheap for you, go ahead, it's probably slightly better, but it will not be a groundshaking improvement. Same goes for anything you're spicing heavily even without heat.
"Okay, I see where you're going, here. Is it a waste to heat up the good stuff?"
Absolutely not. Go for it! A simple mug of cider, heated up in the microwave, is a wonderful thing in a way apple juice is not.
"How about cocktails?"
I have limited experience here but I think it is usually a noticeable, significant improvement, but not always. My family favors the Suicider, which has some nutmeg, a large spike of dark rum, and the heart of a bad pun. On the other hand, something like a mule where you are mixing several strong flavors may overwhelm the difference. Use your best judgment, and if you do a taste test please tag me or send me an ask, because I'm curious.
"Why is the good stuff so rare, if it's so much better?"
The process is time-consuming and effortful, it's either hard to scale on an orchard's budget or hard to scale without incurring the wrath of the regulators, and the margins aren't great. I pay $20 for a gallon and a half and I'd probably pay twice that, but I am a snob; most people aren't and wouldn't.
In my hometown, there were six pick-your-own apple orchards, all of which sold cider in their attached store. Of these, only one, the aforementioned Derby Farms, sold the good stuff - this was a local secret, not available to the tourists who came out from Boston. The others had mechanical presses available, but pressing cider is slow, exhausting work and the margins aren't great, so they paid someone else to press it and bottle it, which meant that the pasteurization requirement came in. Even Derby's has ceased to make the good stuff, as they are getting old and didn't have the manpower in the proper season anymore. This is a tragedy but kind of inevitable.
"Why are you writing this?"
Because I think a lot of people would be snobs if they experienced the difference, and the only way to fix aforesaid tragedy is to make the margins better by increasing demand.
