kempiejon wrote:There is a tale about the cider making and when it cleaned up and became more pro the taste wasn't as good. The missing ingredient was deduced to be the rats or mice that would make their way in via the sack of apples or open vats during the brewing process.
Although the thread has drifted considerably I rather enjoy such excursions, especially as this reminded me of something I'd entirely forgotten.
It must have been not far off 50 years ago that a friend and I were driving through the Wye valley. I remember we'd been to a pub at Symonds Yat, but we subsequently came across an ancient looking place, so stopped for a pint (this was in the days that although the breathalyser existed nobody took it that seriously!)
It was the sort of rural pub that I'm sure must now be extinct, primitive in the extreme. It was a hot, summer afternoon and we were the only customers. They made their own cider, so of course we had two pints, and thought it jolly quaint that it was scooped out of a big, wooden barrel.
As anticipated, it was fairly powerful, and had a distinctive, but rather pleasant taste.
When we'd finished we thanked the guy who'd served us, presumably the landlord, and complimented him on his cider. He said he'd been making it for decades, and it was good because it contained a special ingredient that hardly anyone else was still using. We expressed curiosity, so he beckoned us over to have a look at the barrel.
He took the wooden lid off, and we saw that there was a rather noisome looking lump of something vaguely greenish and glutinous floating in the cider.
With considerable pride he informed us that the secret ingredient in his cider was the sheep's head that we could see floating around ...
We declined his offer of a top up!
