"Gives it a bit of body"

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Gardening is such thirsty work.

Especially in all this warm weather.

Not only have I had to water my own garden, but also my neighbours who had gone down to the West Country on holiday.

All my pots and his, have needed a good soaking twice a day, and sometimes three.

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Well, he kindly brought me back some very welcome bottles of Cider. "Black Rat" no less.

It said on the back that they have to throw a dead black rat into each brew to get that authentic flavour. The story goes that after a rat fell in and drowned, they noticed an improvement in the fermentation times and also that it gave the cider had a much better taste. I suppose this is where the term "Gives it a bit of body" comes from.

You don't seem to be able to buy "Black Rat" around here so I have to resort to my second best.

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Kath is obviously a fan of Somerset cider and no doubt DD would support the quaffing of Devonshire brews but this one I like, is Hereford cider.

I do also like the Somerset and Devon, but this one above is more available around here. I try not to drink the fizzy supermarket stuff.

The cider's depth and flavours are dictated by the apple varieties used to make it. This varies between counties.

It is really amazing how many different cider apple varieties there are.

Just a few I have unearthed for the three counties mentioned.

Devon

Browns Apple

Long Worthy

Hereford

Broxwood Foxwhelp

Collington Big Bitters

Redstreak

Somerset

Chisel Jersey

Harry Masters Jersey

Morgan Sweet

Kingston Black

Perhaps the "Black Rat" cider I had was made from Kingston Black cider apples?

And still on the subject of rats, I was reading another of Kath's blogs and I was fascinated by this picture of a brown rat and especially, it's foot.

I thought it looked just like a human hand.

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Picture courtesy of Kath (hope you don't mind?)

I had just posted this.

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Isn't nature wonderful?

In case you were taken in -

I made up the bit about throwing dead rats into the cider!

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