November 3, 2013

For those of you who are over twenty-one years of age and drink alcohol, please read the following post.

Over the past year or so, I've found a number of hard ciders to be personally-acceptable and relatively Paleo-acceptable. Why I say "relatively Paleo-acceptable" is because some cider companies add carbonation, malic acid and other preservatives.

That being said, I was initially surprised to see many popular ciders with acceptable ingredients. So, I decided to replace wine and liquor with ciders for a couple of weeks. Here are a couple benefits that I discovered:

1) No more serious hangovers.
Even though these ciders have natural sugar, I've notice that the "buzz" feels much more pure. Simple cider comes from fermented apples, and the simplicity of that alcohol translates to the clear "buzz" and reduced "hangover".

2) The easier ability to regulate one's intoxication.
Much like beer, cider has a much lower alcohol percentage than liquor or wine, so it's easier to regulate one's level of intoxication (ciders typically have 5-6%).
Questions like "do I need another glass of wine?" aren't so significant because one cider typically will not send someone over the edge of their comfort level. That being said, it's always possible that one single drink will send someone out of their comfort level, but my point is that it's easier to regulate one's intoxication with cider.

With these benefits and my growing interest in hard cider, I decided to explore the world of hard ciders. Over the past year, I've discovered several notable ones. Here are my frequent favorites:

1) Woodchuck Granny Smith (Granny Smith Apple taste, relatively very low on sugar/carbs)
2) Angry Orchard-Elderflower (Nice citrus flavor and wonderful sophistication for a cider, a tad sweeter than my ideal)
3) Strongbow (claims to have added sugar, but their carbohydrate level/sugar/sweetness is one of the lowest)
4) Ace Apple Cider (Nice initial flavor of apple, a little bit of a strange aftertaste)
5) Crispin (Dry Cider served over Ice)
6) JK Scrumpy Original Cider (very pure in it's ingredients, but a little overly sweet)

Anyways, I hope you all found this post interesting, and have a wonderful end to the weekend,

                                                 

I stopped at Total Wine last night and bought Stella Artois Cidre, Magnar's Irish Cider, Woodchuck Winter Oak Aged Draft Cider, Strongbow, and Hornsby.

Thanks for the reminder post. I usually drink hard cider in the fall. I thought I was missing something this year.