Review - American Cider: A Modern Guide to a Historic Beverage

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I received an electronic ARC of this book through NetGalley for review.

This is a well-written, wide-ranging look at the current state of craft cider production in the United States, divided by region. It does a good job of introducing a variety of topics relevant to both the selection and growing of apples and the process of making those apples into cider, while placing each region's cider into a historical and geographical context. This is really neat, and is pretty well-done. It makes for an enjoyable, educational read.

There are times that the historical context overpowers the narrative of cider production. Some parts of the book do sort of read like a high school history textbook (though a markedly readable one), and a reader with a good background in US history that touches on social and agricultural history will likely find much of it review. This isn't necessarily a bad thing--it's absolutely vital context, and important to the book's attempt to draw attention to the many contributions of people who are not of European descent to American agriculture (how well it succeeds in this particular mission is somewhat variable).

I do think the book suffers a little from a lack of clear focus. Split between pop history and travel guide, the shift between a generalized historical context of cider and apples in a particular part of the United States to profiles of a handful of selected individual cider producers in the region active in the late 2010s is a little jarring, and may age the book prematurely--how many of those profiles will remain relevant to readers in five or ten years is impossible to predict.

The book overall makes me more aware of the variety in the American cider industry. I was pretty ignorant of the regional variations within the US on this topic; I knew a little about apple-growing in Michigan and in parts of New England, but very little elsewhere. It's an informative read that makes me want to try more apples, regardless of whether they are in the form of cider.

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