Farnum Hill Extra Dry Cider
price: $8-$10 for a 750 ml bottle
suggested food pairings: medium bodied cheeses, finfish, roast fowl

Years ago, my wife and I discovered hard cider’s possibilities at a beer festival in Cambridge, England. It was in the 1980s, and hard cider was something my French uncles and my wife’s German great uncles joked about from the old days. We each had an anecdotal acquaintance with it, but had never had any pass our own lips. As a novelty, this particular beer festival also offered seven hard ciders from Wales, England and Scotland. There was nothing comparable on the market in the United States in those days, so we were delightfully surprised.

We arrived at the festival at 10 a.m. By 11:30 we were pished. We made the mistake of starting with the locally produced strong beers because we thought they’d run out of those first and didn’t want to miss anything authentic. It was sort of like going to a wine tasting and doing shots of tequila before tasting the wines. Long story shortened—we had a big lunch, then investigated the cider corner to “slow down” a little…. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Making hard cider is similar to making grape wine, but the cider comes in at an alcohol content of roughly 7 percent. This translates into less calories than grape wine for the dry varieties. If handled properly, hard cider also reaches a vintage level of aromatic, tannic, dryness that resembles grape wine. Farnum Hill, a Lebanon, N.H.-produced example, comes in three levels of dryness. I chose the extra dry. Golden yellow in color, the cider’s apple, melon, and overripe pineapple aromas jump out of the glass. Lightly sparkling, it refreshingly scrubs the palate at first, then the flavor profile bursts open and gives way to a classic dry apple character that’s almost immediately upstaged by a tart acid that will carry well with a wide variety of foods. Take a moment to check www.farnumhillciders.com for a great history lesson on the role of hard ciders in our nation’s birth.

Craig Pierce, clubhouse manager of Baker Hill Golf Club, can be reached at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .