It’s an open secret that the cider market is going nuts in Australia, outstripping the market standard single figure growth stats with upwards of a 68% nudge year on year. While my own prodigious thirst can’t quite account that number, so I’m sure I can’t be the only one enjoy a cider from time to time.
Keep an eye out for a new Australian entrant to the segment, Batlow Premium Cider.
A crafty collaboration between a couple of entrepreneurial brothers whose London experience instilled a love of cider and the Batlow Growers collective, a group of folk as passionate about apples as it is possible to be.
Sam Coombes, one half of the pairing spruiking the brand cut his teeth as Marketing Director for MTV, so expect some cool content to tell the story of the brand – hitting the interwebs in a week or so. They also have a Cadbury-esque claim of three and a half apples in every bottle and you can taste each one.
The product itself is good. Fans of the dryer styles like Magners and Weston’s will be pleasantly surprised by the flavour of this local option. The process does not include a pasteurisation, so the fruit flavour is really present and layered in the final product, imparting an almost wine like finish.
I’m looking forward to icing some down with a lick of rye to smooth the passage of week to weekend tonight.
It’s a good story, told with some cheek and backed by an authentic home in Batlow with the growers. It should be fun to watch things unfold.
$18 will get you four to take home. You’ll be able to find it at a selection of up-ish market venues to boot. Stockists info here. Very much a NSW (and ACT) thing for now, but get drinking and hopefully that will spread.
Everyday Drinking 
Cadbury-esque claim – love it! Best cider ever xx