This morning we bottled our latest batch of hard cider. We now have a good supply stored away for the coming year. There is another batch brewing and we may get to more or two more batches this year.

The ciders that I’m making have been evolving and I’ve kept some of them from previous years. This afternoon, I’m going to have a cider tasting and open up several older bottles to see how they’ve aged. We’ve invited a bunch of friends over and the goal is to get all of them to share their impressions of the different ciders. I’ll then try to come up with a good summary of which ciders people liked best, what they liked about them and what I did to make them.

Various things that I’ll look at include the strength, color, clarity, sweetness, fizziness, tartness, bitterness, and any other descriptions I can come up with.

It is a beautiful day outside, so we will probably taste the cider around the picnic table in the front yard. We’ll probably have cheese to clear the palate and the dog running wildly around the guests. It should be fun.

If you have thoughts about what makes for a great hard cider, let me know.