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• Apple Cider: A Taste of the Bay State

• Apple Cider and Apple Juice: What's the Difference?

• Apple Cider Recipes

• Cider Mill list

A favorite product of the apple harvest is sweet cider. In Colonial America, apple cider was the standard drink. President John Adams, who lived to the ripe old age of ninety-one prided himself on drinking a pitcher of cider every morning. John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, imported apples from England in 1629. John Endicott, another governor of the Bay Colony, planted the first apple tree nursery in the New World.

In a short time, orchards became common in the Bay Colony, and apple cider was made from the first harvests of these orchards. Cider provided a tasty solution to water contamination problems in the early settlements.

Until 1930, cider was consumed in greater quantities than any other fruit juice. During the last decade, fresh apple cider has regained much of its popularity despite the introduction of many other fruit juices. Consumers now drink, on average, the equivalent of 13.2 lbs. of apples in cider or juice form - more than three times the amount consumed in 1974.