I've had other ciders, and I may have been overly negative toward them, as my normal drink of choice is beer, and they loosely fall into the category with beer instead of hard alcohol or the like. The fact is, I like filtered, pure apple juice that is not from concentrate, and I've had non-alcoholic cider before that I enjoyed, so I need to shift mental gears to properly enjoy a beverage like this.
The pour is as simple as it gets. It looks like Juicey Juice apple juice and there is no head to speak of. The scent is of apple with alcohol - which is exactly what this is. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that this is a "dry" cider as opposed to the other ciders I've had, but I suspect it will take more than just smelling it to figure that out.
First sip gives me the impression that this is more closely related to wine than it is to beer. In fact, I think they might successfully sell this as apple wine instead of cider. The beverage kind of coats the inside of the mouth as it goes in and give it that warm feeling that a dry wine would - I guess that's where they got the "dry" moniker from. As usual, I wonder what this will taste like with a manly swig.
<manly swig>
What strikes me from that swig is the fact that I know there is no carbonation, but I swear I can fell it along the top of my mouth. Tip-in has that same kind of sour apple bite as the sip gave me (but it's stretched out here, and I can more easily discern it) and then it flows into a very distinct, more sweet apple juice. As the finish starts, the acidity along the top of the mouth hits and then dissipates as the wine-like finish takes over with more bitterness and dryness.
All told, it's not a bad beverage. I think I like it more than the other two ciders I've had, and I would recommend it to anyone who has tried and sort of liked Redd's.
3.0/5