I didn’t used to care. If it tasted okay and wasn’t too expensive on the way to that warm fuzzy community feeling, I was happy. All the better if you were buying! Pushing through weighty, dark wooden doors towards a table surrounded by friends gathered as the day draws to an end. Sinking into familiar surroundings with well-worn seats and sympathetic ears. Glass in hand and not a thought for what was in it or how it had gotten there. It took a life-changing pivot in direction, and a more mindful approach to process and drinking habits, to shine the light on why I should care.

Be it through age or circumstance, not everyone has an experience that moulds a new era of appreciation.

I recently attended a discussion between Sheila Dillon and Mallika Basu on what shapes what we eat and drink, and why it matters. Basu has written a book on the disconnect that humans in modern society have with their food and drink. Much of the discussion was on how history has shaped our relationship with food. From colonial influence on indigenous diets and cooking, to the enclosures act and industrialisation. Each has had its own influence and played its part in reshaping the place that food has in our lives. The discussion grappled the ways in which busy people with busy lives and little disposable income can rediscover the relationship that our ancestors, however distant, had with their diet.

As I listened my mind kept slipping back to the parallels with what we drink. As food production has become ever disconnected from its source, so has drink. Does the environmental impact of apples shipped thousands of miles, even in concentrated form, or juice chilled to preserve its availability across unnatural seasons cross the mind of the consumer? Does the ecological impact of spraying crops, including orchards, play any part in product choice? How can these things be influential in consumer choice when green washing is so closely entwined with a whirling maelstrom of dazzling marketing spin? Who defines what local means? What do regenerative, rewilding, organic, sustainable, small producer, artisan, craft all mean? Where practices can be loosely adopted and terminology misinterpreted, consumers are being wilfully misdirected and manipulated.

Provision of the facts is not the only factor in gaining an understanding. Clarity of concept and definition of terms are key ingredients to getting people to care. We have to ensure that the method and language of engagement is in a format that can be interpreted and understood.

The market is as broad as it is for many reasons. When supermarkets care little of local products, exposure is reduced. Where so many pubs are tied in the products they sell, the diversity of creativity is suppressed. Economies of scale and prioritisation of profit does both the craft and consumers an injustice. It’s impossible to imagine retracing hundreds, if not thousands, of years of societal evolution, but can we hope that there can be a retracing of steps back to a time when craft was widely appreciated and valued over industry? 

Where craft averts from industry is getting people to care – one of the great pleasures of appreciation and devotion. If you’re the grower – you care. If you’re the maker – you care. If you’re the avid fan – you care. If you’re a connoisseur – you care. The work we do in supporting any link in the chain – pubs, bars, hospitality, orchards, cider, perry, makers and creators in any artistic endeavour is in getting people to listen and to care.

The proof is in the palate.

An industrially produced product can barely muster a retort to the character and profile of real ingredients and process. Where less really is more. Modern, commercial processes do not result in the same depth and lavish profiles as those from heritage methods. A can from a supermarket shelf wilts against the strength within a keeved bottle direct from a maker.

Of course, not everyone has the financial ability to choose real cider or real perry (any "real"). Small-scale, slow production costs more. Makers know and accept that but if there is no transparency, no honesty, no facts for the consumer to make an informed decision with; can we really say they’re making a choice at all?

“Thirty bags of apples were handpicked from that orchard there and juiced to make this cider.”

“One hundred trailers of apples from an orchard in France, were juiced to make this cider. That juice was concentrated and shipped for miles before it was then diluted with water, then sugar and some chemicals were added before it was carbonated”.

I know which I’d rather drink.