Good things to drink from apples

At the moment, we're madly packing and preparing to leave France, but every so often we take a break for something fun. Here's an account of something we did recently that prompted Bob to write about some of the traditional products of the region we've been living in as well as of other nearby parts of France:

In both Brittany and Normandy (the region just to the east of Brittany), lots of apples are grown. Long ago, the “agri- culteurs” of these regions mastered the arts of making hard cider, Calvados and pommeau.

Hard cider comes from fermenting apple juice, and Calvados is a brandy distilled from cider. Considered the world’s finest apple brandy, Calvados has been protected by an AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôllée), or to be precise, two AOCs, since 1942. AOC Calvados must come from a limited sub region of Normandy, using a column still in a single distilling operation. AOC Calvados Pays d’Auge comes from an even smaller area and must be made with a copper double still.

Pommeau is an aperitif made from two-thirds apple juice and one-third Calvados. Pommeau de Normandie has its own AOC, but the drink is made in Brittany as well and is bottled simply as pommeau.

We visited a couple of Calvados producers a few months ago, but this week, we had the opportunity to visit a man who 30 years ago bought an old manoir and orchard near Lannion and has been making small quantities of cider ever since. Gérard is a teacher whose specialty is computer science, which is an interesting contrast to the age-old activity of cider-making!

The apple crop was poor and late this year, so Gérard had to get some apples from a friend to supplement his crop and was beginning to crush them about a month later than usual. He uses a vintage “scratcher” (apple crusher/grinder) and cider press that came with the property. Gérard’s grandparents made cider, so he learned the processes early in life.

In the first step, the apples are crushed in the scratcher, a very basic device with two toothed metal rollers that break up the apples. 100 years ago, two men would turn the large wheels on either side. In one of his few concessions to modernity, Gérard uses a small electric motor to run his scratcher. The crushed apples, called pomace or pommy, are collected in sacks or bins and dumped into the wooden cider press. Cider apples are special varieties, some 48 in number, and not suitable for eating.

The cider develops better color if the pomace is left overnight before pressure is applied. Gérard showed us how the crushed apples darken as they sit. He said that if he doesn’t wear gloves, they can stain his hands. He invited us to plunge our hands into the pomace to find out for ourselves. We declined.

For our benefit, he assembled the press and squeezed a bit of juice out. Gérard’s press is a traditional ram press—a cylinder with a piston operated by a screw. Three layers of thick planks are placed on top of a load of pomace to transfer the pressure from the metal plate attached to the screw. It requires some strength to turn the screw and press the cider.

The collected cider is then allowed to ferment in wooden barrels for about 8 weeks. Traditional makers add no sugar or yeast, taking advantage of wild yeasts present in the apples. Gérard told us that the old people say that the more rotten apples there are in the mix, the better the cider is. But he hastened to say that rotten doesn’t mean moldy – he takes out any apples he sees that have mold on them.

Once the cider is put in barrels or drums, foam must be removed from the top and sediment from the bottom. Gérard says he does this about three times during fermentation. Aging and bottling complete the process. Last year Gérard had a big apple crop and produced 700 liters of cider. He will be lucky to get one-third of that this year.

Cider in France can be dry (brut), sweet (doux) or in-between (demi-sec). The sugars in the apple juice are converted to alcohol through the fermen- tation process, producing a lightly fizzy drink. The sweeter the cider, the lesser intoxicating it is. Brut cider typically has an alcohol content of 4 to 5 percent, while doux has only 1 to 1-1/2 percent. In Brittany, cider is the customary drink with savory crepes and is served in ceramic bowls in preference to glasses.

Young Calvados is used in mixed drinks, while aged Calvados is an after-dinner drink. In a heartier age, Calvados was used to create the famous trou normand (“Norman hole”). Dinners in Normandy were lengthy, multi-course affairs. To revive the appetite between courses, a small glass of Calvados was tossed down, figuratively to make a “hole” for more food!

Gérard was very kind to let us watch (and help!) him start his cider-making for the year. Afterwards he showed us around the restored farmhouse.
Thanks, Gérard!