Cider in the United States

Apples were one of the earliest known crops in the English-speaking New World; ships' manifests show young saplings being planted in barrels and many farmers bringing bags of seed with them, with the first settlers headed to what is now the Southeast.

However, other edible cash crops, like rice, maize, and apples, were grown as they had value in the markets of growing cities like London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Cardiff.

[4] In 1634 Lord Baltimore instructed settlers of the new colony of Maryland to carry across the sea "kernels of pears and apples, especially of Pipins, Pearemains, and Deesons for making thereafter of Cider and Perry.

"[5] There are records of at least one English apple cultivar used for cider and cooking, Catshead, being grown on Berkeley Hundred Plantation in Virginia around this time; later introductions from the UK would have included Foxwhelp, Redstreak, and the extinct Costard.

[6] Other records from the Tidewater South show wealthier farmers and plantation owners arranging for the import of French apple varieties, such as Calville Blanc, Pomme d'Api, and Court Pendu Plat, likely in part due to qualities they wanted to improve in the stock available and the difficulty there was in keeping early breed-stock alive.

They faced an uphill battle in cultivating many crops, however, because the honeybee is not a native insect to America and knowledge of the husbandry of orchard mason bees would remain limited until three centuries later.

In Europe, honeybees were and still are the main means of pollination for apples, cherries, and pears, and thus some of the earliest pleas for new supplies sent home to Britain by Jamestown colonists were for beehives.

But in America, leaving the trees without a surrounding fence in the open resulted in attracting nearby populations of black bears, woodchucks, skunks, raccoons, elk, and deer looking for food.

Most of the cider, cooking, and dessert apples brought from the oceanic climate of Northwest Europe were not bred for high heat and humidity or late season frosts.

This includes Roxbury Russet in 1634, High Top Sweet by 1630, and Rhode Island Greening in 1650 - all of which still survive and are still used for cider making and baking of pies.

John Endicott, another New Englander, began one of the first known nurseries for apples and pears, and in 1648 he is recorded as selling 500 young trees to a William Trask, for which he received 250 acres of land.

Approximately 20 years earlier it is believed that he planted a garden full of fruits selected for alcohol production, near what is present day Salem, Massachusetts of which one pear tree still survives.

In 1676, Nicholas Spencer, secretary of the Virginia House of Burgesses, speculated on the cause of the riots of the past two years, "All plantations flowing with syder, soe unripe drank by our licentious inhabitants, that they allow no time for its fermentation but in their brains.

[15] Unbeknownst to the British settlers of central colonies and Appalachia, it is likely some of the cultivars brought by Germans and Swedes introduced genetics that were much hardier to cold weather than the stock they possessed.

Pehr Kalm, a Swedish naturalist, noted in his travels in 1749 that nearly every home on Staten Island had a small orchard attached and in the colonial capital, Albany, apples were being pressed for cider to be exported south to New York City.

[25] Surviving heirloom varieties that had a role in the old orchards have been carefully catalogued, and many have been put up for sale at city farmer's markets or sold by the bushel to businesses wanting to make their own labels.

[26] On the East Coast, many have been taking cuttings of trees planted a hundred years ago and blending them experimentally into new brews, with California and the Great Lakes States following suit.

Chicago has been taking advantage of its proximity to an area in Michigan that has national importance as a major apple growing region, and Great Lakes producers are pressing an increasing amount of cider.

[31] As the effects of the 18th Amendment continued, Boston and the coastline of Massachusetts grew in importance as places where contraband alcohol from Eastern Canada and the Caribbean could be smuggled in by boat.

Because Boston and the small fishing villages that dotted the New England coastline were a gateway for contraband alcohol, smuggling overshadowed, rather than preserved, local and rural drink.

Hard cider has become a popular drink among restaurant and bar patrons in their 20s and 30s, and it is a common alternative to beer for a simple meal and for mixologists in their cocktails.

[40] Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, the oldest producer of Applejack in the country has been handed down through ten generations and can be found in bars across the state, fueled by a renewed interest in older style cocktails.

New varieties of apples better adapted to the cool and rainy climate were developed for the region, most notably by breeders like Albert Etter and Luther Burbank.

[46] Orchards partially provide cideries in California with their cider apples while simultaneously importing other, more bitter, varieties from France and England to diversify the available flavor palate.