I drank this bottle of cider while being thoroughly yet compassionately crushed at a game of chess by my uncle-in-law. I'd love to blame the beating on the cider having an alcohol content of 7.4% but that would be an injustice to the game and an outright lie. The loss was all mine but the cider helped ease the pain.
Made from a variety of the best apples of the harvest - Thatchers primarily uses the Katy apple, a flavorful, juicy and right acidity apple - this oak aged Somerset cider had a rich, lightly smokey flavor that filled my mouth. Matured in over 100-year-old oak vats, it had a strong alcoholic warmth on the back end, down the throat and in the stomach, though it was only slightly fizzy. Its clear amber-gold color was struck through with red overtones and it looked quite nice held up to candlelight or against a backdrop of quickly dwindling chess pieces. It wasn't as dry as I would have liked, though it did have decent tartness on the back end. A bit like biting into a crabapple soaked in bourbon. Overall, I liked it for what it was: an oak-aged, darker, deeper flavored higher-alcohol-content cider. I don't really drink cider to get drunk and I generally prefer it dry, light and airy but Thatchers 2013 Vintage didn't make any claims on those things. I'd drink it again, especially in winter.
This bottle was part of my first British purchase of cider and I chose it largely based on the appearance of historical longevity and classical appeal - I was happy to learn that it's still owned and operated by the original family line on a 380 acre farm in Somerset. It wasn't overly flashy and it didn't look like it was trying to convince me that I'd be cooler if I had it in my refrigerator or ordered one at a nightclub with swirling lights. Thatchers has been making cider since 1904. With history like that, there's no need to try to keep pace with the times. Let them keep pace with you.
Denis Thatcher, a noted arch-conservative, house-husband to Margaret Thatcher, and golf and gin enthusiast had utterly no connection to the Thatchers cidery though he supposedly talked bitterly of the fact that the "workman's swill" bore his aristocratic and regal surname on its label. His ego was such that he couldn't stand even the possibility of someone confusing his bloodline for that of a lowly and flea-bitten laborer's. None-the-less, the rich-in-flavor cider continues to please people's palate after more than 100 years of pressing some of the finest apples in the English countryside. Denis Thatcher be damned!
Made from a variety of the best apples of the harvest - Thatchers primarily uses the Katy apple, a flavorful, juicy and right acidity apple - this oak aged Somerset cider had a rich, lightly smokey flavor that filled my mouth. Matured in over 100-year-old oak vats, it had a strong alcoholic warmth on the back end, down the throat and in the stomach, though it was only slightly fizzy. Its clear amber-gold color was struck through with red overtones and it looked quite nice held up to candlelight or against a backdrop of quickly dwindling chess pieces. It wasn't as dry as I would have liked, though it did have decent tartness on the back end. A bit like biting into a crabapple soaked in bourbon. Overall, I liked it for what it was: an oak-aged, darker, deeper flavored higher-alcohol-content cider. I don't really drink cider to get drunk and I generally prefer it dry, light and airy but Thatchers 2013 Vintage didn't make any claims on those things. I'd drink it again, especially in winter.
This bottle was part of my first British purchase of cider and I chose it largely based on the appearance of historical longevity and classical appeal - I was happy to learn that it's still owned and operated by the original family line on a 380 acre farm in Somerset. It wasn't overly flashy and it didn't look like it was trying to convince me that I'd be cooler if I had it in my refrigerator or ordered one at a nightclub with swirling lights. Thatchers has been making cider since 1904. With history like that, there's no need to try to keep pace with the times. Let them keep pace with you.
Denis Thatcher, a noted arch-conservative, house-husband to Margaret Thatcher, and golf and gin enthusiast had utterly no connection to the Thatchers cidery though he supposedly talked bitterly of the fact that the "workman's swill" bore his aristocratic and regal surname on its label. His ego was such that he couldn't stand even the possibility of someone confusing his bloodline for that of a lowly and flea-bitten laborer's. None-the-less, the rich-in-flavor cider continues to please people's palate after more than 100 years of pressing some of the finest apples in the English countryside. Denis Thatcher be damned!
Learn more about Thatchers 2013 Vintage at http://www.thatcherscider.co.uk/
