IS CIDER JUST FOR SUMMER?

Picture a cider advert.

Chances are there's sunshine involved.

There might be a field. A festival. A barbecue. Someone is probably wearing sunglasses.

We understand why.

An ice-cold cider on a properly hot day is one of life's great simple pleasures.

But Britain gets approximately twelve minutes of dependable summer weather each year, so making cider a summer-only drink seems unnecessarily restrictive.

The apple doesn't stop working when you put a jumper on.

Here's our argument for drinking cider all year round.

SPRING: BACK OUTSIDE

Spring might actually be one of cider's most natural seasons.

Across Britain's cider-growing regions, orchards start bursting into blossom. Days get longer. Pub gardens slowly become viable again.

This is prime "maybe we can sit outside?" territory.

A crisp cider suits those first properly bright afternoons perfectly.

You might still need a coat.

That's fine.

SUMMER: THE OBVIOUS ONE

We're not going to argue against this.

Summer and cider are excellent together.

Barbecues. Festivals. Camping. Beaches. Gardens. Parks. That strange British tradition of immediately removing your shirt the moment the temperature reaches 19°C.

Get the cider cold and you're sorted.

Red Fin is, after all, best served chilled out.

But summer doesn't get exclusive custody.

AUTUMN: THIS IS LITERALLY APPLE SEASON

If we're being technical about it, autumn has a stronger claim to cider than summer does.

This is harvest time.

Cider apples are typically harvested from around September into late autumn, depending on the variety. Apples are collected, milled and pressed before their juice begins its transformation into cider.

So while everyone else is suddenly adding pumpkin spice to absolutely everything, cider is quietly entering the season it's actually built around.

Then there's the food.

Roast pork. Sausages. Mature cheese. Sunday roasts.

Cider is extremely comfortable around all of them.

WINTER: HEAR US OUT

This is the season where cider gets unfairly forgotten.

Beer becomes darker. Red wine appears. Mulled drinks take over Christmas markets.

But cider doesn't suddenly stop tasting good because it's dark at 4pm.

Cold, sparkling cider can be a brilliant counterpoint to rich winter food, particularly pork, cheese and the endless procession of beige party food that appears every December.

And if you want to lean fully into winter, there's always mulled cider.

Warm cider with spices and citrus has been around in various forms for centuries. It makes a pretty convincing argument against cider being purely a hot-weather drink.

Maybe drinks don't need seasons

There's a broader point here.

We tend to give drinks occasions.

Rosé means summer.

Stout means winter.

Fizz means celebrating.

Cider means sunshine.

But nobody is actually enforcing these rules.

Sometimes you want something crisp and refreshing precisely because everything else around you is rich, heavy and wintry.

Sometimes the January sun comes out.

Sometimes you're cooking a roast in July.

Drink for the moment, not the calendar.

At Red Fin, we make modern British cider from 100% fresh pressed Somerset apples.

Yes, it's excellent cold in the sunshine.

It's also excellent cold when it's raining sideways outside.

Best served chilled out. All year round.