Meeting The UK's leading Apple Cider Brandy distiller

old apple tree we wash sail thee and hope that thou will bear hatfuls capfuls three bushel bag fulls and a little bag under the stairs [Music] we're here in somerset in england the heartland british cider production we're gonna meet julian the man responsible for producing some of the most fine handcrafted cider in the country but also some of the best cider brandy i've ever tasted follow me down there into the orchard and we're going to learn a little more about britain's national drink evidence of cider making in great britain goes back as far as 3000 bc where it's believed crabapples were juiced and fermented but it wasn't until roman occupation that our cultivating techniques and brewing practices really began to take off after the romans left we go through a bit of a dark ages period without much written about cider production but i think it's fair to say brewing probably continued i mean they weren't just making apple pies after the normans invaded in 1066 they bought with them advanced press technologies but also high tannic cider apple varieties that elevated our game even more by the time we reached the 1800s cider was the preferred drink of the nobility in fact an apple and raspberry ferment was the drink of choice for ladies of the nobility but the the peace the resistance the icing on the cake of british cider heritage the royal society supposedly has papers that accredit a sparkling cider production produced with a secondary ferment in glass bottles stocked with cork to west country cider producers before the man who invented champagne mr don perignon was even born so the french maybe are forever indebted to west country cider producers for their method traditional champagne bonjour chaps [Laughter] i mean the truth is that as i said the normans really are accredited to bring over the tannic apples that help our side it'd be so good in the first place so lest we get too smug about things [Music] bonjour [Music] julian here we are in your shop and how long have you been running it how long have you been creating i'll be making something for you for we've been making brandy for about legally for 30 years um this is the side of the shop which has been certainly here for 300 years and so we were always one of the best farms for making cider in the area the art and the craft of blending traditional cider is the art of the craft of blending the up to 200 varieties of cider apple which we grow 200 varieties right we have 180 acres of orchard which i suppose is about 15 000 apple trees and we we blend those apples to make sort of cider that's how craft artisan cider is made industrial cider is different they were rather like making fruit ciders for the underage market but here we are sort of grown upside makers distilling cider is what cider's making makers do when they grow up but in a way the side of the world needs distilling to add to the world of cider french wine has connected harmony actually go with it yeah and we need some classy drinks to go through the into the market from the orchards to the west country and so before we go on our tour this is an apple aperitif which is cider brandy thank you and the juice of the kingston black apple 18 cheers it's the starting point of our distilled range and drink it if you have to keep your glass with you because we'll put more things in the glass before we're finished that is absolutely delicious thank you let's let's let's walk through these giant doors here let's go what's through here oh my god huge barrel we're just about to follow julian this is uh very fruit heavy getting the apple coming through the alcohol is mild on the back pallet it's there though it's the warmth and i love the idea of using it as a kind of pims drink let's follow let's go through here i think there's something quite exciting this is 300 years old where are we right now huge vats through there you're in the side of it so we have huge oakvats over there which is one of the biggest one holes ten thousand gallons and they're oak this is cider ready to go out to pubs different places we'll put it in smaller containers you might bottle it and so this is barrels playing an important role some of our vats are stainless steel some of them are fiberglass wine tanks quite a lot is wood and wooden vats and barrels play a very important role in our aging process so we are cyber makers so we like to have wood so that's a very important part what kind is this oak these are oak and it's does it matter is it french like american oak do these things matter in the fact it doesn't matter but for brandy later on you'll see it matters incredibly important so all the not a lot of the cider is just aged and oat barrels for a little bit of time yes yeah lovely but brandy might be aged anything up to 50 years how much soda do you produce it about 200 000 gallons i suppose million liters a million liters yeah and half of that returning spirit it sounds like quite a lot but it goes it does could we let our viewers at home know what this book is this is something really really special we'll get a close-up on it in a second this this book this is a treaty cider written in printed first in 1678 um and on page 190 it says you may after do fermentation extract spirits commonly called brandy in great plenty very excellent quick and [Music] this is very important because basically fruit makes a brandy and cereal makes a whisky and um but this gives us a history to 1678 which is the first written evidence of brandy making in in the past we used to have problems with the north of the border where they said they're not brandy the brandy cyber brandies protected christian hair about 400 years old defines english the whole view [Music] it's absolutely stunning [Music] [Music] so [Music] where are we this is amazing but why are good news there yeah this firstly is our bonded warehouse when we mature spirits but this isn't a spirit product this is a fermented product but we make here we store in here this is what like ice wine this is ice cider so we freeze the juice of the apple ferment the juice of the apple and produce a very sweet sort of pudding wine some people might say it's grandma's pudding wine some people would say a lot of them would say but it's brilliant for cocktails so it's freeze the apple you freeze the juice freeze the juice freeze the juice and then what does that do it takes out the sugar takes out the the the water goes to white ice which is just water right and then leaves all the taste components behind and then we ferment that right that makes sense so this is a very sweet product and it's it's a lovely um 11 product chairs yeah it will give you a shortcut it's amazing they give you a shot but if you decide to walk off an hour wow you'd still have a lovely taste of apple for the next half an hour it's really apple for it's intensely apple and intensely everything and ten yeah it's almost caramelly yes that's beautiful really beautiful what a product let's drink some more great okay this is somerset pomona we would say right from the the the latin for god of apples or god of fruit we would say this is the drink to go with a good cheddar and somerset is the home of cheddar cheese and so this is for a cheese board and it seems all the cheese producers in somerset would say this is their chosen accompaniment for good cheddar we uh this morning before we came to you we did a cook up we made a grilled cheese sandwich using some extra mature cheddar amongst some of greer and uh had we have not been driving here we could have drunk this with it like the heathens we are but but certainly a restaurant in somerset ought to have this on the cheeseboard absolutely otherwise they're missing a trick yeah but actually london restaurants have been hugely enthusiastic and supportive it's finding its way and we certainly wish to be a niche of english food and drink and this is the flagship that we'll put this on this is an absolutely beautiful product chairs chairs well thank you for your knowledge thank you for your passion chen chen thank you for your product and here's to cider and here indeed is to cider brandy from yourself and long may it continue as british tradition so i have a daughter who you met jesus rapidly becoming in charge and so we have a future and that's important that is important i'll drink to that like subscribe and if you haven't been here and if you haven't drunk julian's product get your hands on some now it's phenomenal thank you thank you cheers cheers get your lips around that class guys that was global food quest exploring cider in the west country getting psychedelic that's the cider bus from glastonbury if you haven't been here come there visit the farm try their products cheers damn that's good

Channel: Global Food Quest

Views: 4,315

Keywords: home distilling, apple jack, apple brandy, apple cider, apple, cider, brandy, apple cider brandy, orchard, apple juice, apple alcohol, homemade apple brandy, homemade apple cider brandy, brandy cider, brandy cider recipe, destillers of brandy, destillers of apple cider brandy, Sommerset brandy, sommerset cider brandy, sommerset, sommerset cider, old man, farmer, apple farmer, countryside farmer, oak barrels, oak vats, fermentation, drunk, countryside, brewery, cider brewery

Id: JneDKzDBNIQ

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2020