…your dick inside her?
Hey, don’t blame me for that joke, I first innocently fell for it when @bobearth told me to look for it at a wine bar…dirty so-and-so!
What a glorious weekend – relaxed, been sleeping well (about as rare as sighting Halley’s Comet, honestly!) and bloody good weather. It is indeed a natural antidepressant.
After yet another breakfast jaunt, a drop-in visit was made to an evil alcohol supplying conglomerate. I was actually keen on getting some of the Monteith crushed pear cider that some friends said was available.
Success. It turned out that there were a couple of other perries in stock so we grabbed them with a view to drinking on the front lawn like good suburban bogans. You kind of bust your cover when you start reading and look like you’re learning shit.
The New Zealand Monteith’s pear cider is your choice if you don’t like your cider too sweet. The pear flavour is but a homeopathic drop in the actual cider. I could barely taste it. However, I liked it – no alcoholic harshness, no yucky sulphite presence (it contains sulphites but it’s not evident in the beverage). I know, sulphites are there for preservation, sigh. There’s a hint of colour. To be honest, I wanted it to be more alcoholic.
Kopparberg’s pear cider was nowhere near as refined an example. The smell of fake pear hard candy emanates from your pint glass as soon as you fill it and it’s the colour of urine. It’s also really fucking sweet. The alcohol pops up every now and then, so it’s a bit ‘rough’. Under no circumstances will I drink this again voluntarily. On the upside, I guess it’s less disgusting than alcopops. There’s a little bit of sourness to keep the sweetness in check.
The Rekorderlig premium pear cider was a good deal less disgusting than the Kopparberg. Both are Swedish and Tristan made an educated guess that perhaps it is in keeping with Swedish taste to have them sweet? Rekorderlig initially smells of liquid bubblegum, and is largely the same colour as the Monteith. Taste-wise, I personally found it less insipidly sweet than the Kopparberg but Tris thought it was too sweet. I found it more refined.
If I were buying for a friend and they had a preference for sweet, I’d probably buy the Reorderlig for sharing. However, the winner out of the three consumed on the same day was definitely the Monteith.
If you’re feeling really adventurous, then do try the Australian Dickens perry. Be warned though: this is sour, dry and tart. I struggled with the first gulp but after this last trio, I really want to have it again. It’s cloudy and there is a good deal of sediment in the bottom. Is this the discerning person’s perry? Definitely in style. Good choice to label it ‘perry’ and not ‘pear cider’…
Despite noticing it hit the Australian market in the colder months, Melburnian brewery 2 Brothers’ Gypsy pear cider has been very popular. A tad sweeter than Monteith’s but perhaps a little more carbonated? It’s widely available around Melbourne in bottles and on tap. I was even told by a pub worker that from a consumer perspective it’s 2 Brothers’ most popular product – though note, that’s not a cited fact.
Guys, this is just readily available perry. Imagine what kind of summer we’ll have if you love apple cider… So girls, and girlier men, throw out your alcopops and embrace what looks to be a spring and summer of more cider love.