New Zealand cider tasting - The results!

Sampling the food and drink of a region has to be one of my favourite ways to immerse in a culture :) 

We tasted seven New Zealand ciders and one Swedish one because I hadn't seen it before. :)

The final order: 

1st: Thomas and Rose - Watermelon and Cucumber (10)

2nd: Thomas and Rose - Cider with Nashi pear and passionfruit (9)

3rd: Wild side - Cider with wildberries. (8)

4th: Rekorderlig - Non-NZ - Elderflower and lime (7)

5th: Harvest - Original (6)

6th: Wild side - Strawberry and lime (5)

7th: Harvest - Lemon (4)

8th: Good George brewing - Doris plum cider (2)

Gisborne Brewery NZ

Harvest Original Crisp

Sweet 6/10

Crisp, Fresh, Liquid apples

This first cider we tasted was Harvest and came in two varieties in the 4square in Tairua: the straight apple cider and then apple with lemon. The lemon one ranked pretty low on my cider score recieving a score of only 4/10 and coming 6th out of eight ciders. The pure apple one was pretty nice and ranked mid table.

Gisborne Brewery NZ

Harvest Lemon Crisp

Sickly 4/10

Sweet and like a bitter lemonade.

Wild Side 

Cider with Wildberries

Sweet and very-berry. Non-sickly. 8/10

Thomas&Rose Fine fruit ciders

Blend number 4

Apple cider with watermelon and cucumber 

Sweet, light 10/10

Unusual and delicious. Refreshing with a good taste of cider. Like a light watermelon pimms. An excellent drink I could repeat many times ;)

Thomas&Rose Fine fruit ciders

Blend no 5 - Apple cider with nashi pear & passionfruit

Fragrant, mild and delicious 9/10

Really delicious :) Incredibly fragrant. Sweet and lush and not overbearing.

Rekorderlig - Non-NZ

Elderflower and lime

Delicious and thirst-quenching. 7/10

Is there an elderflower cider that isn't good? I haven't found one and Rekorderlig is an excellent cider maker so this was looking very promising from the start and it did not fail to deliver. I enjoyed this to the last drop :)

Wild side

Strawberry and lime

Sickly but pleasant and paletable for a short time. 5/10

Strawberry and lime has become a classic combo so it has to be done well because it has good competition. Going sicklier in my opinion is not the way forward. This combo needs a lighter, fresher touch to it. 

Good George brewing

Doris cider

Unpalatable and I didn't finish it 2/10

This was a large bottle as you can seen in the first pic and I had high hopes for this unusual specimen but I was very disappointment. I'm sure what the fruit tastes like but I have been told it's nice so why this was the medicinal tasting chemically liquid, Inhave no idea. I'm not a fan and I didn't finish my drink. I think we left the bottle in the fridge in the end.