I tested flavoured ciders… fresh-flavoured £2.75 winner tasted just like a can of Lilt and would be great with cheese

WITH a whopping 324million pints sold last year, cider is now the most popular alcoholic drink after beer.
And it's not just classic versions we are enjoying – because premium fruit-flavoured options account for 72 per cent of orders.
As pub gardens gear up to supply us with refreshing summer pints, Alex James – Blur bassist, Big Feastival founder and now cider maker – gives his verdict on an array of the flavoured tipples.
Rattler Pineapple Cider
500ml, 3.4%, £2.75, Tesco
6
IT'S perfectly possible to make cider from just apples and nothing else.
Apple skins carry natural yeasts that will cause juice left in a barrel over the winter to ferment and magically transmogrify into cider by spring.
This minor miracle has always been more than enough for me, but I can see the appeal of adding exotic flavourings to spice things up a bit.
Unsurprisingly, this one tastes a bit like Lilt. It's full of fresh pineapple flavour and would be great, Hawaiian pizza-style, with cheese on toast.
Also makes me think I'd love to try an alcoholic drink made purely from fermented pineapple juice.
That really would be something.
RATING: 5/5
Rekorderlig is launching a new cider cocktail range
Alska Strawberry & Lime Cider
500ml, 3.4%, £1.99, Aldi
6
A SWEDISH cider with an eye-catching label bursting with colourful illustrations of fresh strawberries and limes.
It's almost like they're tricking you into thinking you're buying a yoghurt of some kind, rather than a bottle of booze with added sugar and flavourings.
It must be hard enough growing apples and strawberries in Sweden, let alone limes, but we'll skim over that.
It tastes exactly like a 'red' flavour freeze pop. It's too overwhelmingly sugary to pair with a lot of foods or other drinks.
But pouring it over ice would dampen the sweetness and make it a decent lunchtime aperitif.
On a boiling hot day, upgrading from a crafty Mr Freeze to one of these in the garden wouldn't be a bad idea.
Crumpton Oaks Strawberry Fruity Cider
568ml, 4%, £1.50, Tesco
A MIGHTY, pint-sized can of cider. It's very pink and very sweet and it's among the stronger offerings in today's field at four per cent alcohol by volume.
It tastes of strawberry flavour rather than actual strawberries, but is by far the cheapest of the bunch.
If it's value you're after, you could easily add a shot of strawberry syrup to your favourite cider, but if it's strawberry flavour convenience that you want, then look no further.
Syrupy sweet, so might be nice as a pudding wine alternative.
Try it with ice cream or apple pie, or maybe even delivered lovingly to the wife while she's halfway through a long soak in a bubble bath.
RATING: 3/5
Old Mout Kiwi & Lime Cider
500ml, 4%, £2.38, Asda
6
IF the idea was to train your children in how to drink alcohol, this would be the perfect way to get them started.
It might be an alcoholic tipple, but it smells like a bag of Jelly Babies and tastes like an exotic species of Fanta. I have to say I rather liked it.
I can see it going down really well at a barbecue as it's full of fizz, with enough zest and fruitiness to square up to the traditional burned sausage.
That said, I've also got a feeling you could get something very similar for much cheaper by adding a shot of already-open booze, like vodka, to a glass of your favourite fruity fizzy pop.
Pulpt Melba (White Peach & Scottish Raspberry) Cider
500ml, 3.4%, £2.65, Tesco
6
THIS cider reminds me of the rhubarb-and-custard chews I used to enjoy on my Saturday morning trips to the sweet shop as a child.
It looks like a glass of plain old cider but then, when you try it, you get a good biff of raspberry flavour. Any peachiness was harder to detect.
As with most of these cheap and cheerful drinks, I think older teens would love it, but whatever your age, it would work best served as cold as possible on a swelteringly hot sunny day.
You're basically getting a two-for-one alcohol and sugar hit.
It would also ride very nicely alongside a pork pie or a Scotch egg at a picnic.
Woodgate Blood Orange Cider
(4x440ml), 3.4%, £2.99, Lidl
6
THERE are so many things I like about cider. Apple orchards are enchanting places – the Biblical Garden of Eden, which was a paradise, was an orchard, after all.
Even relatively recently, cider was used as currency to pay farm workers, so whoever made the best cider got the best workers.
And it helped lead to a revolution in British glass manufacturing that ultimately shaped the drinking habits of the entire world.
This blood-orange tinned tipple actually tastes nothing like cider at all. Instead, it looks, tastes and smells just like a famous orange fizzy drink.
fast food smash.

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