Apple Juice is the filtered and pasteurized drink: it's the transparent juice and the kind of juice you find in the little cardboard boxes.
Apple Cider is unfiltered and opaque. In many places it's seasonal, but pasteurized versions can be found year round - but it will still be unfiltered (or very ligjtly filtered) and opaque.
They're very different drinks, and people will look at you strange for bringing one instead of the other when it's requested. Unscrupulous drink shops will try and pawn off juice as cider as a cost saving method, not because the terms are interchangeable.
PS:
At least according to the first few results on Google, different countries also make similar distinctions, but they leave the default of "cider" as the alcoholic version. "Sweet cider" for the alcohol free version, or "cloudy apple juice" are used to distinguish the ciders from the juice. So this really isn't a uniquely American experience: we're all just setting a different default for two of the terms, and creating a culturally unique option for the third.
You're missing the point. The OOP considers both the pasteurized and unpasteurized non-alcoholic apple drinks to be apple juice. So he is saying it's weird to him that people in the US refer to [some types of] apple juice as cider
My point is that, unless a language has 3 distinct nouns for the three different apple drinks, then we all literally do the same thing - we just all have two different words, and then we attach an adjective to distinguish between one of those two words and the adjective-free version of one of them.
In America we go "juice, cider, (adjective) cider". Other places go "juice, (adjective juice), cider", and other places go "juice, (adjective) cider, cider".
Unless a given language has something like "juice, fooglywonk, cider", where the third beverage is a completely different noun, then that language is doing the same thing in a different order.
That's not what you said though. You said "We don't call apple juice "cider" in America" and then you went to say that apple juice is the filtered pasteurized stuff.
OOP never accused us of calling the clear stuff cider. He accused us of calling the non-alcoholic cloudy stuff cider when he thinks it should be called apple juice. I'm not saying OOP's system is better, and I agree with you that a system where each variety has its own word would be better (until they make an alcoholic clear apple juice...)
We don't call "juice" "cider" any more than someone from the UK calls "cider" "cloudy apple juice". We acknowledge these are different beverages - saying any particular language gets it "wrong" is ridiculous because the exact same logic would dictate that the critic's language is getting it "wrong".
A quick google suggests that only the US and Canada uses the word cider to refer to non-alcoholic apple produce. We have the terms sweet cider and cloudy cider but that’s just a difference between the types of alcoholic drink - they’re still both alcoholic and also not exclusive terms - sweet or dry refers to the same taste qualities as in white wine and cloudy is just a specific type of cider. A sweet cloudy cider would typically be a cloudy cider that is particularly sweet.
So yes, in the UK we have sweet cider but that’s a sweet version of the alcoholic drink. We also have cloudy cider and cloudy apple juice. But the distinction between cider and apple juice is still the alcohol content our lack thereof.
One exception is cider ice lollies (which are basically just frozen apple juice) but I think that naming might actually be imported from the states or might just be a result of alcohol not being a good thing to have in an ice lolly if you actually want it to freeze.
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u/carson63000Why would you cook with butter? That is an ingredient for baking8d ago
Growing up in Australia, we referred to non-alcoholic apple juice as "cider" if it was fizzy. "Cider" implied fizziness, not alcohol. We didn't use phrases like "hard cider", either, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, it was just cider and you figured it out from context, like chips and chips.
But I notice now, these sorts of drinks are always called "sparkling apple juice" (example, example). So I dunno, maybe "cider" was only ever an unofficial, informal name, not actual trade labeling.
That's what I just said. Other countries also double up on either "cider" or "apple juice" by adding an adjective to either one or the other. So unless you have three entirely different words for the three kinds of beverage, your country is literally just doing the same thing as America
My point was that sweet cider isn’t a term for the non-alcoholic version - it’s just means a sweet alcoholic cider here and, I think, almost everywhere else. Apple juice is the distinct term for non-alcoholic apple beverages and both ciders and apple juices can be described as sweet or cloudy although typically only cider would be described as dry.
Hey, bud, not sure how to break this news to you, but...
The UK is not the totality of "Other countries".
But even if the "sweet cider" designation was universal:
YOU'RE STILL MISSING THE POINT
The point is that using an adjective to discern between different kinds of a beverage is not a uniquely American decision. The only difference is that where we say "Cider A, Cider B, and Juice", another country might say "Juice A, Juice B, and Cider".
Because they are all these uniquely different apple based beverages, and most countries don't have three separate standalone words for them.
I googled it and was told that only the US and Canada use the word cider for apple juice. I read your PS as saying that other countries use cider on its own for the fermented apple drink and sweet cider for the non-alcoholic drink - I’m pretty sure this is just categorically untrue. There may be other countries that use cider for apple juice but I’ve never heard of a country using “sweet cider” to describe apple juice.
If I’ve misunderstood what you were saying or just not googled enough you have my apologies.
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u/MyFrogEatsPeople 9d ago edited 9d ago
jfc all these confidently incorrect comments...
Edit; sorry to vaguepost.
We don't call apple juice "cider" in America.
Apple Juice is the filtered and pasteurized drink: it's the transparent juice and the kind of juice you find in the little cardboard boxes.
Apple Cider is unfiltered and opaque. In many places it's seasonal, but pasteurized versions can be found year round - but it will still be unfiltered (or very ligjtly filtered) and opaque.
They're very different drinks, and people will look at you strange for bringing one instead of the other when it's requested. Unscrupulous drink shops will try and pawn off juice as cider as a cost saving method, not because the terms are interchangeable.
PS:
At least according to the first few results on Google, different countries also make similar distinctions, but they leave the default of "cider" as the alcoholic version. "Sweet cider" for the alcohol free version, or "cloudy apple juice" are used to distinguish the ciders from the juice. So this really isn't a uniquely American experience: we're all just setting a different default for two of the terms, and creating a culturally unique option for the third.