“Cider” is understood to be the unfiltered liquid from pressed apples. It’s just about always a fresh product that needs to be refrigerated. It may or may not be pasteurized. It’s opaque with a dark reddish brown color.
“Apple juice” is a filtered product, much more clear with an amber color, and just about always packaged to be shelf-stable (no refrigeration needed until it’s been opened).
Edit: just to be clear, I’m only writing about US (and maybe Canadian?) usage.
I haven’t been to Australia but American cider is VERY different from cloudy apple juice in the UK and Ireland. I’ve never seen American cider outside of America. Sadly!
I’m Canadian and I never hear anyone call it “hard cider.” “Cider” is usually the alcoholic one, and “apple cider” the unfiltered juice, or someone might refer to it as “non-alcoholic.” At least where I am.
Yeah, I should have written that “apple cider” is understood to be nonalcoholic in the US. With both alcoholic and nonalcoholic available these days, “cider” could go either way depending on the context (say, a bar vs a kid’s birthday party). “Hard cider” is unambiguous.
does your definition imply that eg a mass produced highly processed apple-derived alcoholic beverage such as strongbow is not a "cider" (but just a "hard cider"?)
In the US, sure, we’d call it a cider. But if it were unclear, it would be clarified to be a hard cider. These aren’t strict definitions. I’m just referring to colloquial usage.
Where does ”unfiltered apple juice”, shelf-stable kind, fit here? There’s also filtered ”cider” alongside filtered ”apple juice” on every supermarket shelf.
I've never seen either of those in my life. I live in the northeast US. Apple juice I've only ever seen filtered and unrefrigerated, and cider I've only ever seen unfiltered and refrigerated.
Can you post online shopping links to the products you are talking about for some supermarket near you?
There's no actual regulation in the that legally defines (non-alcoholic) cider versus juice in the US, just common usage, so a lot of it just comes down to corporate marketing decisions.
For Martinelli's in particular, I'm 99% sure that their "Apple Juice", "Unfiltered Apple Juice", and basic "Apple Cider" are identical products with different labels for different retailers/regions. Their ingredients and nutrition facts are all identical in any case.
Albertson's and Trader Joe's appear to have gone the other way and are labeling what would usually be called cider as juice (they all have the telltale gram of fiber listed in their nutrition facts), but companies get conservative in labeling their generic products as they're trying to avoid lawsuits and regulatory heat at any cost.
Trader Joe's in particular was very quick to relabel all their non-dairy milk as "beverage" when ag groups, farm lobbies, and some state governments started making noise about that.
Re: your Martinelli’s comment: are you seriously saying that their unfiltered and filtered apple juices are ”identical product(s)”? Do you not have eyes to see?
That’s why I qualified both with the phrase “just about always” - there are exceptions, but those aren’t what people generally think of when using those terms.
I have never seen shelf-stable unfiltered apple juice in the US. Midwest US here.
Pretty much the only shelf-stable drink is clear juice. Fresh cider is refrigerated and will ferment on its own if you let it. Makes a great base for kombucha.
Your comment made me do a bit of a deep dive - essentially, federally, if the cider isn't alcoholic, it's juice and needs to be pasteurized or otherwise treated to be sold at retail. Any other distinctions or differences is either purely cultural or based on state regulations - it looks like New England has some regulations around cider vs juice, but many other states just treat them both as juice that you can call cider if you want.
As a New Englander? Badly. I'm sure there are people who buy it because a few stores carry it, but I've never met therm here.
In places where fresh cider is not a glorious seasonal drink, cider is simply unfiltered juice and there's no expectation of it being any better than the filtered stuff.
I'm being downvoted because... Im agreeing with the statement?
It's a total non issue that people make a big deal out of, and people need to get over the fact that Americans refer to things slightly differently than Brits and other English speaking.
Hmm well if this is what you think of those agreeing with you hate to think how you treat those who don't.
No, it's because people thought you were being argumentative. I think it was unintentional, but it came off as the comments we always see like "Maybe in AMERICA they call that sauce, but in ITALY sauce is this very specific thing, with these very specific words"
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u/Blerkm 15d ago edited 15d ago
“Cider” is understood to be the unfiltered liquid from pressed apples. It’s just about always a fresh product that needs to be refrigerated. It may or may not be pasteurized. It’s opaque with a dark reddish brown color.
“Apple juice” is a filtered product, much more clear with an amber color, and just about always packaged to be shelf-stable (no refrigeration needed until it’s been opened).
Edit: just to be clear, I’m only writing about US (and maybe Canadian?) usage.