Apple
Day Celebration, Corn Street, Bristol, 20th October 2004
We
looked forward to the Corn Street Apple Day celebrations
with great anticipation after being promised cider &
perry tasting, entertainment, food, competitions, etc,
"this will certainly liven up a dull Wednesday at
work" I thought. Sadly we didn't get much in addition
to the usual Farmer's Market that has a residency in the
same street every wednesday of the year. The sound of
the Wurzels belting out from some speakers was obviously
to be welcomed, but the only other entertainment on show
was a man with a microphone pretending to be "a big
apple" as baffled apple-fans watched on in disgust
muttering "are we in the right place?" as well
as "what the hells this crap?"
The
selection of different varieties of apple above was interesting,
and I thought this could be a good way to identify what
types of apple actually went into the cider we made last
year, but this was tricky just by looking, as you couldn’t
buy or sample any of the apples. On a normal Wednesday in
Corn Street there certainly isn’t usually a “longest
apple peel” competition, which seemed like a good
idea, however we gave up trying to do this when we just
received a blank look from the supervisor after asking whether
she had an apple, or a peeler, we could use. The cider &
perry tasting amounted to asking nicely for a thimble-sized
sample from the Day’s Cottage Cider stall, who are
also there on a normal week too.
The
cider was good, with a much sharper taste than we are used
to, provided by the Gloucestershire grown apples. The first
we tasted was a sweet, sparkling drink made mainly from
Morgan Sweet apples, refreshing, and nicely fizzy without
being gass-ey, very nice chilled on a summer’s day
I’m sure. But it was far from a summer’s day,
and the murkier, still, Medium Cider went down slightly
better in the rain – this added Kingston Black and
Dabinet apples to the blend with the Morgan Sweet, along
with a couple of others whose names I have completely forgotten.
That was about the extent of the Apple Day celebrations
- a man with a dragon thing was mincing around too, but
we weren't sure if that was anything to do with Apple Day
or not.
A
lot of people appeared to be around waiting for something
to happen, as the discription of the event from the adverts
made it sound a lot better than it actually was. This seemed
like a wasted opportunity to get people intested in real
cider and teach them about apples. But the lunch-break was
not lost, because me and Al Caholic still had the CHEESEMAN
to cheer us up on the way back to work! Al consoled himself
with half-a-tonne of Cropwell Bishop (the people's champion
of cheese), while I just drooled... -Gents reporting for
HMZ.
Cheese,
loadsa cheese. Bishop pictured back row, second from left,
in acrobatic stunt formation.
Do
you disagree with us and think Corn Street Apple Day wasn't
rubbish? Were you upset by the lack of perry too? Chat about
it on the Cider Forum HERE.
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Cheers.
