Confessions of a G33k

Thats crazy. I can't believe they are doing that. Thanks for the warning, I sure hope they get a lot of complaints and change it.

I've been thinking of trying the hot apple cider at Barnes and Noble's but I've suspected that they are doing the same thing.

Hot apple juice, burnt coffee, and small hot chocolate for five dollars.

Why does anyone even go to Starbucks?

Okay, I give up. What IS the difference between cider and hot apple juice?

Evil Glenn is referring to this post? What does this story say? Waste of time, I say.

Cider is dark and usually cloudy and delicious. Done right, it tastes like the essence of 100 apples in one cup.

Apple juice, on the other hand, is sugar water with a vague hint suggesting something resembling apples.

Starbucks has been serving "hot apple juice" as "cider for at least two or three years now. I happen to like hot apple juice, so it didn't bother me. It does sort of bother me that they use a brand I can buy at the supermarket (I forget the name -- I just recognized the jug).

In the US, we call unstrained apple juice "cider". That's incorrect. Cider is a fermented sparkling beverage made from fruit. Real cider is available in most bars in the Bay Area.

Michael: Cider is an alcoholic drink made from apples and served in English pubs and drunk in pints (like beer). It's quite nice but drinking 8 pints is a very very bad idea.

it actually (from what i remember) is a regional thing...

depending on your location, they may serve hot apple juice, or they may serve cider...

traveling through North America last few years, i noticed the differences in place to place...

the hot cider is better

Here’s the latest in MBA jewels;
(Do those Coffee folks take us for fools?)
    Rhyme ’s the form to redact this
    Reveal of sharp practice;
They’re selling fake cider—House rules!

Technically, fresh, unfermented cider and apple juice are the same thing - the juice of pressed apples. However, in actual practice, apple cider as we think of it is a fresh unfiltered product and apple juice is usually filtered, made into concentrate, reconstituted, heat sterilized and canned or bottled. It's like the difference between a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a glass of orange juice made from frozen concentrate or from a can. Technically they are both juice but one is a far cry from the other (and usually fresh cider commands a higher price).

Cider is a fermented sparkling beverage made from fruit.

That's hard cider. Every dictionary I have makes a distinction between cider and hard cider.

That off my chest, I'm still looking for something reasonably consistent that distinguishes cider from apple juice.

If only I'd waited a couple of more minutes. Thanks for pointing out how apple juice and cider are...Apfel und Apfelsine.

Hard cider is fermented, albeit not long enough to have more than trace amounts of alcohol.

Notice the difference between "fresh cider" and "natural" apple juice, the latter of which is merely unstrained applejuice.

The color is quite different, and the taste and smell are different as well.

Sorry, that should read FRESH cider is fermented...

Hard cider, by definition, is obviously fermented.

Also, true hard cider is not to be confused with the apple-flavored malt beverages that have become more common over the last few years.

Hm. Where I come from (Southern Africa), cider is made from fermented apple juice, and has a higher alcohol content than beer. What Americans call "cider", we call "apple juice". What Americans call "hard cider" we call "cider" (assuming it has enough alcohol in it :-) ). This observation holds across several countries, including the UK. I am fairly sure it holds in New Zealand and Australia too.

I think it's just another example of the American drift away from the Queen's English (which is not necessarily a bad thing - I think it's natural for a language).

yup there are many ciders. It can be still and cloudy or bright and fizzy. The fizzy stuff can be sweet or dry. all of them are fermented, and generally between 4 and 8% alcohol.

the heavy cloudy ones are the most alcoholic and often known as scrumpy ... and it is a VERY bad idea to drink 8 pints :-)

Unfortunately, there is NO standard for what constitutes cider vs. juice. In part, it's a regional/seasonal thing (midwest tends to call it cider all the time, everyone starts to use the term cider in the fall), but the sticklers for such things say that "cider" is the juice pressed from early-season (and hence tarter) apples, while "juice" is pressed from late-season or sweeter varieties. That jibes with my own impressions - I like tart "cider" and despise sweet "juice".

The Straight Dope answered the question years back, to a similar conclusion.

Wrong again you Canadians :)

Cider is unstrained apple juice WITH cinnomin(worst spelling of that word ever?)and other spices that you would desire. I personally make it with the unstrained juice, real cinno-sticks, orange slices, and a mystery spice...

Bloody cinnamon, orange slices etc. I hope that's not proper cider you're spoiling.

Lokk here for thr skinny
http://www.history-of-cider.com/

We Americans have come to think of hot cider as a hot, non-alcoholic apple drink with cinnamon and other spices (such as nutmeg). The apple juice is supposed to be 100%, unstrained apple juice, not apple flavored water with lots of sugar in it like you buy at the store.

If I got a bottle of apple juice heated in the microwave, I wouldn't consider it cider and I think I'd be pretty pissed at being charged an arm and a leg for it.

That said, Starbucks tea sucks, too. They make it in the same containers as the coffee, so it always taste like old, burnt coffee.

Only thing worth a damn there is the mocha malt, and that's more like a milkshake than a coffee drink.

Yeah, it's a regional/seasonal thing. Here in Maryland the default "cider" is sweet, cold, unfiltered, non-alcoholic apple juice. It's usually sold in refrigerated plastic jugs. Sparkling cider is cider with some carbonation added. Hot cider is real cider heated up, and mulled cider is hot cider steeped with spices and other ingredients.

Hard cider is a fermeted, alcholic, and carbonated beverage served cold like (American) beer. Not to be confused with applejack, which is further distilled from hard cider.

Apple cider peaks in popularity in the cold months. There are some clueless places that try to sell clear apple juice as cider during other times of the year when there's less demand, but they don't count because they're all going to burn in hell.