On our most recent trip to Spain, I was very keen to have some sidra as soon as possible, having gotten a taste for it during our trip in 2009. We took care of my craving on Day #1. Sidra is the the Spanish word for cider.
Here is Lisa outside of a Sidreria (i.e. a place that specializes in selling sidra) in the center of Madrid. Despite its location in center a major tourist destination, we saw nobody but spaniards the two times we visited.
Sidra is a fairly low alcohol product. Two can drink a bottle pretty quick, but not catch much of a buzz. The sidra is poured into the glasses as pictured below to the depth of about an inch. The reason that you don't pour a full glass is that the sidra is not carbonated like the hard ciders you find in the US or Britain. To get the right flavor in the sidra, it is poured into the glass from over your head into a glass that you hold at your waist. The splashing that occurs when you pour the sidra from such great heights serves to aerate the sidra in a way that is somewhat similar to carbonation. The aeration is critical to getting the correct flavor. Because of this strange technique, you only pour a little bit into your glass and then drink it right away.
Sidra is a drink from the northern part of Spain, especially from the province of Asturias. In this poster on the wall in the Madrid sidreria, you can see blue flag with the yellow cross from Asturias. The fellow in question is drunk, so drunk in fact, that he is pouring his sidra as I have described from above, except that he's got it backwards: he's pouring his sidra from his glass back into the bottle. He says, in very drunken Spanish, "I pour my sidra how I want to do it. You got a problem with that?" My sense is that serious drinkers of sidra drink so much that they can get pretty smashed despite the low alcohol content.
In this picture, taken in a bar in San Sebastian, the bartender is showing off his pouring technique by not looking as he pours the sidra. This is not uncommon. However, his technique is somewhat bad. If he were doing it right, the mouth of his glass would be mostly facing the wall instead of the ceiling. Note the legs of jamon hanging on the wall.
A year ago, we tried sidra for the first time in Llanes on the north coast. We arrived there after a long day driving along the north coast of Spain. Our efforts to find housing in the towns before Llanes were not successful. The result was that we ended up in Llanes more or less by accident. In 2009, we were particularly lucky to stumble into local fiestas in the various small towns we visited. Llanes was one such place. I think that the fiesta was that of the Virgen of Guia. According to legend, the virgen saved from some fishermen from an unexpected storm during the 16th century.
After a bit of a struggle, we managed to find a place to sleep despite the crowds. Before long, we made our way downtown to see what was going on. We saw many young men and women in traditional clothing, but we were too late to see their performance or parade. However, before long, we started looking for sidra. This was not hard, because it was everywhere. At our first bar, we ordered sidra, and they told us we had to buy the whole bottle. Not understanding how you drink the stuff, we declined and moved on. A while later, we tried again, this time agreeing to a full bottle. Here is our waiter pouring our sidra for us. You can see that as compared to the "no look" showoff pictured above, our waiter in Llanes has his glass nearly perpendicular to the floor. When held like this, the sidra splashes into the glass to aerate the drink in the traditional fashion.
A while later, Lisa poured some sidra also. As you might guess, our efforts to pour our own sidra were a source of great entertainment among the locals. We probably poured a lot of our sidra on the floor. It's pretty messy, even if you're good at it. The floor is sticky from all the splashing sidra.
It being a fiesta in Llanes, there was also a street dance. My picture doesn't do it justice, but the crowd spontaneously broke into some traditional group dance while we were there. The main drink at the dance was sidra, which was sold by entrepreneurs who walked into the crowd carrying cases of bottles of sidra. These bottles were sold in great quantities to the revelers right in the middle of all the dancing.
Robbie V, a friend of mine from the Twilight Hours forum is also a serious Spain nut. Upon hearing my interest in sidra, he wrote up a short post on the subject. You can read the whole thing here, but here are his main points:
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"Sidra is alcoholic apple cider about the strength of beer. However, it is not carbonated. It comes in a wine size bottle and everyone shares one bottle until it finishes. A group also shares only one (or two) glasses amongst everyone. The barman will pour one drink and hand it to the first person. The person drinks it (leaving just a little in the bottom) and hands the glass back to the barman. The barman will swish out the remaining sidra to clean the glass for the next person. He (or she) will pour another drink and hand it to the next person. This continues until everyone has had a drink. The barman then leaves to pour for other tables and will return back in 10-15 minutes to pour another round. (note from floyderdog: I have never seen it as Robbie V describes this, but my experience in the sidra world is way less than his)
The flavor of sidra only comes out when it’s infused with air. Thus, sidra is poured (thrown) from the bottle over your head and splashed into a glass you hold down by your hip. I thought I had a couple pics of me throwing sidra on my laptop but they must be stored on a drive back in the states. I did a quick Google search and found a good photo of throwing sidra: http://www.fenichel.com/sidra.shtml(actually, I just poked around this guy’s site and he has some GREAT photos of Asturias, Spain)
Asturians drink so much sidra (a group of 6 people will easily drink 20 bottles of sidra throughout an evening ) that you rarely have a bottle that’s more than a month old. However, many friends have told me that sidra could theoretically keep for 2+ years. Finally, sidra purists say that any sidra taken out of Asturias will NEVER taste as good."
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I have yet to find a source in the US that sells authentic sidra. Bummer.
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