In this episode Matthew chats to Alistair Morrell of Cider is Wine, a cider supplier and trade body attempting to boost the image of cider by reframing it as ‘orchard wine’. The pair sat down in Manchester’s Café Beermoth and got deep into a (healthy) debate about cider and perry, before tasting through some of Alistair’s favourites.

Cast your mind back to February 2021, when I published episode 20 of this podcast. In an effort to experiment with the format of the show, I’d begun recording long monologues loosely based on the idea that I would ask myself a question and try to both answer and contextualise it in under an hour.

One of the first questions I asked myself was “does cider have an image problem?” And, over the course of about 55 minutes, I sent myself down a rabbit hole of loaded opinion in which I expressed some deep feelings about cider and perry. It proved popular, in fact to date it is the third most popular podcast we’ve ever published. Why it has been listened to so regularly is largely down to the fact it split opinion about 50/50. Some relished the idea of cider’s image being challenged, while others found little to agree with.

One bone I picked at relentlessly during the episode was the existence of a supplier and trade body called Cider is Wine. I considered their use of terminology, in particular its decision to refer to cider and perry as ‘orchard wines’ to be somewhat self-defeatist. I’ve long considered that language and its use to describe alcoholic beverages to be a powerful tool. I also believe that for cider and perry to win more hearts and minds, it needs to be true to itself and not look to beer or wine for answers (or customers). This includes directly referring to itself as wine, and not cider, as Cider is Wine chooses to.

Not long after the episode was published I was contacted by the founder of Cider is Wine, Alistair Morrell, and we had a relatively healthy conversation about my views—well, as healthy as you can do via Twitter and email. What we did agree on, however, was that when Alistair found himself in Manchester we would sit down face to face and record a podcast, which we finally did in November 2023.

Remarkably, as so often happens when you allow time for proper, in-depth, face-to-face conversation, we found that we had more common ground than we suspected. Well, I have a feeling that Alistair did suspect it, because cider is his business after all. While we didn’t agree on everything, we did speak constructively about the future of cider and perry, and discussed his use of specific terminology in depth.

After the heated part of the interview, we also took the chance to taste through a few of the ciders he distributes, all of which were stunning. (Please note, this episode was recorded in a moderately busy bar, so there is a little background noise, but nothing hopefully too distracting.)

Ep53 — Alistair Morrell of Cider is Wine

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