[Public] And ... today's wtf moment

[kniteracy]

OK. Now I've talked before about what's different when you compare living in the UK to living in the US, and sometimes I've learned things (like where to get decent hot dogs) and sometimes life just bes that way and you have to lump it (note my semiannual importing of American feminine products, for example).

Would you believe that they don't regularly sell apple cider vinegar in the grocery store in the UK? The only product listing on the Tesco website is for a pricey salad vinegar. Everything else is malt vinegar or white wine vinegar.

Here's where I can get apple cider vinegar in the UK.

I can get it from Higher Nature, which looks to be a pricey health food website. For £6.95. For 300ML. Dude. I'm used to paying like $1 for a gallon of the stuff....

I can get it from Ostler's Cider Mill, and I can get it in 5- or 10-litre boxes (like wine in a box. Remember wine in a box? We're playing all the hits here on WIAB....). It's £24.95 for 5 litres and £36.91 for 10 litres (tempting, but where would I put it?).

Or....

I can get it from Wells Poultry Housing and Accessories (at chicken-house.co.uk, no less!) where it's £3.99 a litre and £12.95 for five.

Right. Here I go, shopping at chickenhouse.co.uk, unless anybody else has a better suggestion.

And, as an aside -- stevieannnie, what the *ahem* do you use apple cider vinegar for wrt chickens? From the chickenhouse.co.uk web site: Apple Cider Vinegar 5 Litres
A total Natural Organic, anti-bacterial, anti-coccidial anthelmintic and tonic beneficial effects for all livestock and poultry. Increases egg supply,improves feathering and improves flavour and tenderness of meat birds. Seriously? you feed chickens vinegar to make them more tender?

ETA: OK, OK, I have been shown the error of my ways once again! It is possible to buy cider vinegar in the UK at a grocery store for a decent price -- just not the way I was looking for it, on the Tesco website apparently tailored to my postcode. But. I am leaving this post up. For the chickens.

*grin*

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Well to start with, stop looking for "apple cider". Cider is made from apples. That is the definition of cider. One does not refer to "apple cider" any more than one does to "bee honey", if for slightly different reasons.

I will drop into Sainsburys this afternoon, and pick up a bottle of cider vinegar, unless for some strange reason they've stopped selling it: I think I've run out myself. Of course, getting the stuff from me to you may increase the cost slightly, but I'll grab an extra bottle for the next time I see you, anyway.

Checking their website....
Sainsburys cider vinegar, 500ml, 76p
Aspall cider vinegar, 350ml, 90p - well, that's Aspall for you.
Aspall Cyder vinegar, organic 500ml £1.31 - probably paying extra for the pretentious "y".

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Right, I'll check Sainsbury's instead. Searches on the tesco site for 'vinegar' revealed only the Aspall 'cyder' vinegar, at about that same price.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Two bottles of cider vinegar acquired. You'll probably find it locally faster than I could get it to you, but just in case.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Found it at Sainsbury's. Will you have a use for it, or should I buy it off you next time we see one another?

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

At that price, it hardly matters. I'll use it before it goes off.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Going to tesco.co.uk, to the "price check" link, and then entering vinegar gets both the Aspall and the OL (the latter at 48p for a 350ml bottle). Entering cider vinegar gets just the OL.

(But that's the only way I have found to get their site to give anything like a full list of brands, other searches tend to result in just their current favourites. And require logging in...)

[djonn]

Cider is made from apples. That is the definition of cider. One does not refer to "apple cider" any more than one does to "bee honey", if for slightly different reasons.

Er, um....no.

One can also find pear cider on both sides of the pond (see the Wikipedia entry for Brother's Cider for a UK example, complete with relevant photo, and the relevant Ace Cider page here for a California maker. And this page from another US maker gives a lengthy history of pear cider, aka "perry".

And as for the vinegar -- I have a bottle of "apple cider vinegar" in my cupboard at this very moment, bought from the Safeway just down the street and labeled exactly as such. (Both the Heinz product and the Safeway house-label version are called "apple cider vinegar" on this side of the pond.)

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

"Pear cider" is so-called by people whose vocabulary is too limited to use the word "perry". I know shops like to dumb things down, but I see no reason to encourage them.

[djonn]

I merely report the language as I hear and read it used, by businesses and individuals alike. As a native Pacific Northwesterner with family roots in apple and pear country, I have heard "pear cider" used far more often than "perry", though both terms are certainly accurate.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

American usage, yes? It isn't general British usage traditionally, although I am seeing an increase in bottles labelled "pear cider". And note that UK cider is always fermented, we never use 'cider' to refer to unfermented apple juice.

It is my understanding, though, that so-called "pear cider" is usually apple cider with pear juice added, whereas traditionally perry is pure pear juice fermented. I'm not sure whether that is true for all of the "pear cider" I see in UK shops these days (it certainly is for some), but it is all low alcohol (around 4% ABV) compared to that labelled 'perry' (around 7% ABV or better).

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Cider, with added pear juice???? (winces). Thanks, warning noted, yet another reason not to buy the stuff. (What I've tried has been far too sweet for my taste anyway.)

[djonn]

There are definitely differences in US vs. UK usage as regards "cider" -- over here, "apple cider" in particular may refer to either hard cider or the unfermented juice, and (as the vinegar bottles illustrate) "apple cider" is absolutely not considered a redundancy.

I think I'd be wary of generalizing about the apple juice content of "pear cider"; my sense is that recipes and formulations may vary widely. I know one of the sites I linked does, as you note, make its pear cider by adding pear to an apple cider base. However, I am fairly confident that there are small makers here in Oregon producing all-pear cider (some hard, some not).

Just to complicate matters further, a bit of Google-fu also produces references to a number of other sorts of cider, notably peach cider and cherry cider; some of these refer to apple ciders flavored with other fruit, but I found at least two peach cider makers who aren't using apples at all.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

peach cider is wonderful stuff, incidentally - worth trying at least once

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Actually, German labelling often does refer to "bee honey" ("Bienenhonig"), which boggled me a bit when I saw it (what, apart from bees, makes honey?). But cider vinegar has been available here in the UK at least since the 1960s, my mother has used it as long as I can remember.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

That does boggle me. What, indeed, makes honey, if not bees?

But "pear cider" is akin to "cow pork". A very useful phrase if you don't know of "beef".