C is for Cider

When I was eight, my family took a summer vacation to Ireland.  My grandparents, my parents, my uncle, my two young siblings, and I drove around Ireland, Wales, and England for a summer in a 1984 VW Quantum.  The three kids, me included, piled in with the luggage in the trunk of the station wagon.   Besides the close confines, another problem reared its ugly head -- I got car sick.  All the time.  My Grandpa joked about making a map of all the places I puked throughout the trip.  Whenever I got sick, my Grandma would move to the back seat and my Mom would move to the trunk with my brother and sister (ages 5 and 3) and I'd get shotgun, with the window wide open and a trash bag on my lap.

Being in Ireland, we stopped for lunch at pubs and had 'pub grub.'  My parents would get us either a half pint of lemonade (generic 7-Up from a soda fountain) or cider.  Everyone in my family believed it was apple juice.  When I told them it tasted yucky, they told me to stop whining and drink it, it cost money.  Of course I was also complaining about the butter on my sandwich and the lack of ketchup for the 'chips,' so I don't blame them.

In the USA, cider is a non-alcoholic beverage.  We specify hard cider when it is alcoholic.  Not so in Ireland.  Yep, my family was giving their kids booze and the Irish bar tenders at the little pubs we stopped at probably thought it was funny. I cannot say whether or not there was a correlation between my cider intake and my car sickness, but it's possible.

I write about the Elizabethan era.  Water was not for drinking -- water caused dysentery and worse.  People started their mornings off with a small ale.  Of course, the alcohol content was less then than it is today (a small ale being very much like a near-beer).  In order to write the era correctly, I had to find out about what the various classes ate and drank, how it was prepared, and how it was stored.  Let me say, the Elizabethans had to have strong digestive systems.  Their nutritional habits truly tested the theory of survival of the fittest. 

I chose my topic for today's A-Z blogfest because I am currently drinking Fox Barrel Black Currant Cider.  I do not think it is yucky and I plan to drink the whole thing.