Cider

Cider is a traditional drink that is made from apples. This drink consists of fermented apple juice. It’s very popular in Asturias.
It’s made in a ‘llagar’. Apples are collected from the trees and stored until they are ripe. Then, they are crushed to get the liquid. The cider is kept in big barrels until it ferments. Then, it is bottled and sold. There are two types of cider: the acid cider has alcohol. The sweet cider hasn’t got alcohol.

It is peculiar the way it is served. In this ritual the cider must be ‘escanciada’. The taste is different when a good ‘escanciador’ (person who serves the glass of cider) works properly:He (or she) rises the bottle over his head and makes the cider fall against the edge of the glass. When it strikes the glass it becomes oxygenated. That action is called ‘escanciar’. Then, you must drink it at once. You don’t drink it all. Some dregs stay at the bottom of the glass.

That´s the way you have to "escanciar" (Villa is from Asturias and he knows it well)

It is drunk in traditional festivals in Asturias like the ‘Amagüestu’. In this festival adults and children drink cider and eat roasted chestnuts. Children drink sweet cider, of course!. Adults always take the alcoholic drink and sometimes, when the party finishes, they are not very sober.

Here is Marina showing us how to do it

Cider is popular in Asturias because we used to have a lot of apple trees and lots of apples every two years (there’s a good harvest every two years). It is drunk since the Roman period. In the nineteenth century they started to bottle it. They started to ‘escanciar’ it.

Yurena Gancedo y Marina Granda