Museum of Cider

Despite Nonconformist ministers’ association with teetotalism, I spent an enjoyable afternoon yesterday at Hereford’s Museum of Cider. I can no longer claim to be abstinent: back in 2018 I detected a certain pride in my saying how I had never allowed a drop to touch my lips, so I drank some mead to burst the bubble. Nevertheless, I have never been drunk and the taste of wine and the smell of beer I find generally unattractive. Cider is a genuinely refreshing drink, and low or no-alcoholic varieties can be purchased with ease. Herefordshire is famed for the stuff, and claims, according to the curator, a fifth of global production. So let the Frenchman quaff his revolting red vinegar, and let the German slosh his stale-smelling beer, but an Englishman may take his delight in the yellow-amber juice of apples. Indeed, Julius Caesar witnessed the ancient Britons fermenting crabapple juice fifty year before the birth of our Saviour, and took the practice back to Rome. The ancient Jews were not, I think, familiar with cider, but in a 1420 copy of the great John Wycliffe's Bible, we read Luke 1:15 translated

‘he shall not drinke syn ne sidir’ -or, in modern spelling:

‘For he (John the Baptist) shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor cider’

The AV simply renders it ‘strong drink’, but so familiar were medieval Englishmen with fermented apple juice, that it was deemed to be a helpful gloss.

Anyone still doubting the integrity of a minister’s love of cider should also have a care for the puritans, who lived before the dissenting chapels’ ban on booze. Ralph Austen (1612–1676) wrote in 1653 A Treatise on Fruit-trees, showing the manner of grafting, setting, pruning, and ordering of them in all respects as well as The Spiritual Use of an Orchard. He was perhaps inspired by Walter Blith’s (another puritan and Parliamentary officer) The English Improver, or, A New Survey of Husbandry. The pair thought agriculture and horticulture to have deep spiritual associations and that trees were visual reminders of Eden. Austen was a cider manufacturer, and encouraged his readers to add a little sugar to their bottles of cider to give sparkle and sweetness. His front page, while quoting the texts of Ezekiel 24:27, Amos 4:4 and Deuteronomy 10:19, claims that Cider and Perry (pear cider) are-

‘liquors found by experience most conducing to health and long life’.

I suspect his claim about long life and health may be a stretch, though of vigour and happiness, I would not doubt. He encourages greater and more careful cider production, and for this it is even said that he sought, and gained, Oliver Cromwell’s support.

Like all good things, excessive consumption causes more harm than good and opens doorways to sin. It would be better to avoid drink and save it for the visible Kingdom if it would in any way compromise one’s witness or mar one’s faith. Food is a bigger temptation to me than drink, but because of the prevalence of obesity, it is more acceptable to indulge, which is wrong. Yet God still gave us apples to be enjoyed in all their forms and uses. Nevertheless, I let Lemuel’s mother have the last word:

It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the justice of all the afflicted. Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to those who are bitter of heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. Proverbs 31:4-87