I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world.	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms . He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on the PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

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Cider II - Bride of Cider A couple of decades ago, I went through a wine-making phase. I diligently sanitized fermenters, measured specific gravity, monitored temperature, carefully bottled and labeled, and did all the things a home wine-maker is supposed to do. Then we remodeled the kitchen, and, despite it being larger, there was no good place to make wine. So I passed most of the equipment on to the next generation of wine-makers. Fast-forward to earlier this year, and my need to make Self-Defense Cider. This time around, things are different. Not only am I embracing a lower tech, more medieval model of making fermented beverages, but I frankly can't be bothered. My new technique is straight-forward - press some juice, chuck it in a bucket, add a little yeast, put on the lid and an air lock, and try to remember to check it in a week. If stuff has matted on the top, I pull it off. After a week or two, I pour it into empty whiskey bottles, and stick it in the fridge. Honestly, it works out pretty well. Especially since I'm not so much worried about getting a consistent high-quality product as I am about keeping the apples from going to waste. And the blackberries, too. There are lots of blackberry brambles about, and if they're handy, I throw them in with the apples. I have made a few refinements in the process, mostly to do with juice extraction. For instance, I run the apples through a food processor before sticking them into the cider press. This has doubled the amount of juice I can get out of the apples. It must be admitted that the apples are rather tart, and not particularly suited to making a lovely drinking cider. The solution, of course, is to add something to it. A few drops of simple syrup turn it into quite a palatable drink. Even better, though, is to do what my wife suggested and use it as the base for a cocktail. A bit of simple syrup, a bit more whiskey, and that topped off with the cider is lovely. If the cider is the blackberry enhanced one, the cocktail is pretty close to something called a "Bramble" - although a Bramble uses gin and blackberry liqueur. So, not really much like a Bramble at all, actually. It's pretty darn good though - and quite refreshing. Luddite'sLog, 12 October 2017 © 2017 Jeff Berry

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