Thistly Cross Ginger Cider

Let me begin with an apology. This week I couldn't be arsed with a picture. "Quel unprofessionalisme!" as they would no doubt exclaim in France. And why the slackness? Christmas cards, that's why.

Thistly Cross, the Scottish cidersmiths, echo my Christmas theme with their Ginger Cider, which is this week's subject booze, as it were. Now, I was pretty impressed by their Thistly Cross Gold. But the Ginger left me a little cold.

It all started well enough with a medium yellowish cider, a thin white head and a tickling of bubbles. But for me the base cider — a phrase which I must admit probably has its origins in Java programming; think abstract base class — is just too sickly sweet conclusively to, as the phrase has it, "rock my world".

Which is a shame because ginger is a good thing® in my considered opinion. I adore a decent slug of Stone's ginger wine whilst monging drunkenly round a campfire. And I’m rather partial to the occasional shot of fentimans. But despite or indeed perhaps because of its semi-respectable 4% abv, Thistly cross ginger remained on the syrupy side of yummy for me.

Perhaps I am too harsh. There are those for whom sweet and cider are words to be uttered in sentences unencumbered by the intercession of any meddlesome bitters or loathsome drys. And those folk will enjoy this, assuming they are also partial to a spot of ginger that is. But for a lover of the complex, the dry, the bittersharp or the tannin, Thistly Cross Ginger is likely to remain a tipple of exigency only, never a daily stalwart.

2011-12-19 by Charlie Harvey