Cider at its strongest does not contain a large percentage of alcohol, and its makers contend that its qualities are more health-giving and far less heady than those of any other liquor consumed in England. According to Mr. Radcliffe Cooke, an enthusiast on the subject, the revival in the cider industry dates from 1890, and there is every hope that that industry will flourish more and more, through the centuries. The recognized cider fruit may be divided into “bitter-sweets”—such as the so-called Norman apples and the Wildings—and the “red” fruits, such as the nearly extinct “Red Streak.” The best cider is made from an admixture of the two sorts. But the gout-fuge cider, we gather from another writer, should be made from a _single_ sort of apple. “There is no difficulty,” writes Mr. Cooke, “in expressing the apple juice; but the fermentation process is not sufficiently studied, and it is here that failure commonly occurs.” “As for the making of Perry and Cider,” writes an authority of the seventeenth century, “which are drinkes much used in the West parts, and other countries well stored with fruit in this {182} kingdome; you shall know that your perry is made of peares onely, and your cider of apples; and for the manner of making thereof, it is done after one fashion, that is to say, after your Peares and Apples are well prickt from the stalkes, rottennesse, and all manner of other filthe, you shall put them in the presse mill which is made with a mil-stone running round in a circle, under which you shall crush your peares or apples, and then straining them through a bagge of haire cloth, tunne up the same (after it hath bene a little setled) into hogs-heads, barrels, and other close vessels. “Now after you have prest all, you shall save that which is within the haire cloth bagge, and putting it into severall vessels, put a pretty quantity of water thereinto, and after it hath stood a day or two, and hath beene well stirred together, presse it over also againe, for this will make a small perry or cider, and must be spent first. Now of your best cider that which you make of your summer or sweete fruit you shall call summer or sweete cider or perry, and that you shall spend first also; and that which you make of the winter and hard fruit, you shall call winter and sowre cider, or perry; and that you may spend last, for it will indure the longest.” We don’t boil much cider nowadays, but this was a custom in considerable favour with the ancients.