>I don’t know much about cider, but I know what I like. When I’m at the in-laws in Devon it’s pretty common to find a barrel of a very local and often nameless cider in some of the more remote pubs. It’s always delicious, and the equal or better of anything I’ve had in France. Then there’s the more common ‘consumer’ stuff like Gwatkins, Dunkerton’s and Aspall, Chucklehead, Winkleigh… there’s a list of good British stuff as long as Peter Mandelson’s face.
Comparing this stuff to trampagne like White Lightning is a bit like comparing a cabbage with a football. Ignorant of cider as I am, i’m certainly better informed than desperate wine bore Malcolm Gluck, who’s moaning about British cider over at The Guardian like he did about beer in february 2009. He got his not-inconsiderable fundament handed to him back then and no doubt it’ll happen this time too. And I still don’t buy The Guardian.
(I haven’t any pictures of cider. Hopefully Evans’ greengrocers will do. They sell apples, and they’re in Devon).
Ten-Inch Wheels 
>In many ways, cider has a better claim to being a traditional drink than beer and wine: an apple drops, a peasant tosses it into a barrel with a rat, it ferments, he squeezes the solids, he has cider. I have drunk cider in Normandy, apple wine in Frankfurt, and scrumpy in the West Country: it's delicious and goes well with a proper ploughman's lunch. Quite why that dopey tw@t Darling should slam a load of tax on it, I'm not sure. What about taxing all French wines over 5 years old? The Banker-Stockbroker ponces who drink that can WELL afford it!
>He should have stuck the extra duty on alcopops. I bet the police don't have much trouble from anybody who's spent the night knocking back the apples at the Black Horse in Clapton-in-Gordano.
>TIW – I'm sure I read somewhere that he is increasing the tax on alcopops. Or did I imagine that?
>i'm still bitter about the guardian. it should be mine. ours. and it's rottenx
>Tandleman – I hope so.And if the cider duty hike is just aimed at the super-strength type, how do they differentiate the park bench stuff from the 'good' stuff, a lot of which could be classed as super-strength?Ally – it's not the paper it was :-(