Oh say can you see, after dawns early cider? It’s the season for all things American, celebrating patriotism and the nation’s founding fathers by launching fireworks with a cider-in-hand. Nothing shouts “‘Murica” more than getting outside with friends and family, letting loose and drinking the fruits of labor. To get into the July mood, here are some pioneering American cider facts to lift your glass to.
1) In his House of the Burgesses campaign before his presidency, George Washington poured 144 gallons of cider and other alcoholic bevvies for voters in attempt to give a boost of lively to his supporters. Needless to say, he took the seat that later launched him into office.
2) Early Americans kept nourished and healthy due to hard cider. When cultivating apples, colonists would accidentally grow more apples then they could eat. After deliberation, they began fermenting the apples into cider to preserve it for much longer without wasting the excess.
3) Thomas Jefferson kickstarted hard cider production, being one of the first pioneers of producing cider using apples he grew in his extensive Monticello Estate orchards in the hills of Charlottesville, Virginia. If only everyone had an orchard to make cider from…
4) Colonists found that by fermenting their ciders for longer than the norm, it would turn into apple cider vinegar, which was used to help preserve foods much better than the techniques they were using before. This was one of the first steps in food preservation, all thanks to cider!
5) Benjamin Franklin enjoyed cider so much that he would reference the drink in many of the things he’d say. While it seems like he had a vendetta against the flesh of apples, the product coming from them is what he loved, saying, “It’s indeed bad to eat apples, it’s better to turn them all into cider.”
6) You can’t say that drinking cider doesn’t make you happy. Well, back then, it also kept the colonists merry. Who doesn’t enjoy sitting back with a few friends and drinking a nice boozy-cider around a fire, sharing stories and getting off your feet from a long day’s work? Beer had a lot of implications in acquiring, but cider was readily available and easy to manufacture.
7) Back in early America, hard cider was a great way to bring in income for the family. In the absence of actual currency in the colonies, cider took its place and essentially became the currency when there wasn’t one. When someone had a debt, they could pay it off in barrels of cider. It’s believed that barrels of hard cider were used to pay the construction crew during the paving of the nation’s very first road system.
