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In the book I'm reading (Uprooted by Naomi Novik, it's genuinely excellent) a witch is instructed to turn barrels of beer and wine into cider so the soldiers don't get drunk and... soldiers drinking barrels of scrumpy sounds like a nightmare! Does cider mean something different in the US?!?

8/10/26, 4:12 pm0 reposts3 likes

Michael

@littlexander.bsky.social

Yes, they think more of the non-alcoholic stuff there. Hence there were a couple of episodes of Friendship is Magic that the kids channels here couldn’t show…

Marx S—

@phophos.bsky.social

yeah so cider in the US just refers to "apple juice" (in some states), so you get "hard cider" (what we know as cider) and "soft cider" (what we know as apple juice). i /suspect/ this goes back to colonial times.

CJ Shearwood

@cj.shearwood.games

Soft cider is also usually specifically closer to what we'd call cloudy apple juice, further reinforcing this.

Marx S—

@phophos.bsky.social

IN SOME STATES afaict there's no difference between the UK and US English on this word, i think it's mostly atlantic states that use cider in this sense. my suspicion is that in 17th Century Britain we had the same thing, because non-fermented apple juice was very rare.