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Fall vibes have risen from their slumber and have reappeared, stronger than ever. Now, I know that everyone is already tired of people screaming “IT IS FALL” almost constantly now that it’s October. But guess, what? I’m going to write about Autumn-related stuff too. Dang Dude is nothing if not incredibly topical. I have to get my content from somewhere. Might as well feast at the trough of red/orange/brown grist that every other blogger is eating from. Got to get those subscription dollars somehow!
Of course, I will not be falling prey to the typical mistakes that fall-based bloggers make. Note that I did not say Fall itself was here. No just Fall vibes. Chicago hasn’t seen a full week of sub-70s temps yet, so I cannot in good conscience declare that fall has arrived. So, I won’t be doing that. In addition, a few other rules to guide your time here. No Pumpkin Spice jokes allowed within a mile radius. No weird Joyce Carol Oates-esque diversions on the nature of death and skeletons. No quoting, fucking, The Raven or whatever. No offense to Edgar Allen Poe, but we get it. Ravens are scary. Damn. The Simpons did it a long ass time ago so no need for me to go on about it. Also, If you’re looking for a reference to like apple picking or pumpkin carving or whatever, you’ll have to go somewhere else!
What I’m going to write about is some dang apple cider. In short, it’s a great drink. Top tier. To clarify these muddied waters, when I say cider, I don’t mean apple juice. Apple juice is baby water. A fructose bomb for little children. A cheap hotel continental breakfast bar-ass drink. Cider is to apple juice what prime rib is to McDonalds. Cider is the good shit. I mean it’s also a fructose bomb, but this time it’s for adults. And kids. Kids can drink apple cider too, just in smaller amounts.
The difference between apple juice and apple cider comes down to the amount of processing/filtration that goes into it. Juice is filtered and treated much more than most ciders. This means that cider has a much shorter shelf-life than juice. It also means that, at least in my opinion, which is all that matters for this specific newsletter, cider has more flavor. It contains more sediment and pulp than juice. Now, sediment and pulp might not sound edible, let alone flavorful, but trust me they are. I also buy “most pulp” orange juice, so take that as you will. I do want to make it clear that cider is not somehow healthy, just for being less processed than apple juice. It’s still, just like apples, very high in sugar. So, substituting your daily water intake for apple cider might not be the best decision. But also, I’m not a dietician, so do whatever the hell you want. Not my business.
Usually this would be the place where I like expand my discussion of apple cider to something larger, say like the exploitation of the apple picking business, or how most of our fruit and produce is picked by several underpaid and overworked laborers who have almost no protections and often face long-term health problems. But I’ll skip that for this week. You can read this, or this, if you’re not already familiar with this stuff.
What I’ll do instead is talk about the best way to drink apple cider. Cold apple cider is perfectly great. A real treat. But there is a better way. A way that transforms cold apple cider from a nice little treat into a gourmet experience. And that’s warm spiced apple cider. A drink of champions, of heroes. A drink fit to be served in Valhalla. A drink that not even the Devil himself could turn down. I’d throw another overwrought descriptor in here but you get the point. It’s good.
The best part about spiced apple cider? It’s easy to make. All you do is take some spices; allspice, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and an orange, throw theme into a crockpot and let it simmer for like eight hours on low. Some recipes call for brown sugar, but that’s overkill in my opinion. Which once again, is the only opinion that matters in this newsletter. My girlfriend’s family just uses cinnamon, orange and cloves and it’s great. The smell of the cider will soon spread out through your domicile, filling the air with smell of apples, spices, and joy. Even for someone who gravitates toward the “Fir Woodsmoke,” and “Grey Heather” candles at Yankee Candle, this is a wonderful smell. A smell good enough to bring empires down to their knees.
Once you can no longer resist the smell of the cider and simply must partake, you have one final choice to make. To mix with whiskey or not. Some people like to add a splash of Kentucky’s finest to their spiced apple cider. This is a totally fine decision. Nothing against it. However, I prefer my spiced apple cider soft rather than hard. Mostly I like being able to knock back a quart of it without any negative consequences other than early onset diabetes. There’s also something about the, and this is where my vocab fails me so I guess I’ll go with “bitterness,” of the whiskey that doesn’t fully quite vibe with the cider. It cuts into the pleasant mélange of the spice blend just a little too much for me. So, when I can, I avoid the whiskey. I’m not that much of a degenerate.
While writing this I was trying to imagine someone who doesn’t like apple cider. Which is just another way of saying that I’m making up a person to get mad at. The best I could come up with was a guy named like “Tyler Gringsby” who works at Deloitte and only drinks Soylent. He says stuff like “maximizing client-agency relations,” and “Scrum Master.” Mostly he really sucks. Does Tyler exist in real life? Hard to say. But if he does and you met him, avoid at all costs! Someone who hates apple cider is no good, they can only be a negative influence on your life.
The whole fall aesthetic is pretty cringe at this point, except when I do it of course. The one exception to this rule, there always needs to be an exception, is apple cider. Apple cider will never go out of style. It’s a world-class beverage than can spruce up any type of party, brunch, hang-out, or chill sesh. So pop open a quart, let it sit in a crockpot for a bit and then relax. You’ve got it made.
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