# Canadian apple juice is..........well, not Canadian actually.



## sags (May 15, 2010)

Interesting report on television (CTV, I think) about apple juice in Canada.

Apparently, the phrase Canadian product or Canadian whatever only applies to the water used to make it.

The apples actually come from China, Asia, Portugal and all over the world.......wherever they are cheapest.

When the consumer advocate was questioned, she defended the practice saying......well, the water is Canadian.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

sags said:


> Interesting report on television (CTV, I think) about apple juice in Canada.
> 
> Apparently, the phrase Canadian product or Canadian whatever only applies to the water used to make it.
> 
> ...


....maybe that explains why that, an hour after drinking canadian apple juice, im thirsty again....
it doesn't really fill you up, or quench your thirst.....
plus, da wife say it just makes her thirsty....says she's gonna look for some with "no MSG"....


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Buy apples at a local orchard and get a juicer. My local orchard has 3 grades of apples, the real nice grade, a not so pretty grade for half price, and the least pretty for half that. All the same apples but the cheapest ones are small or misshapen. Which doesn't matter when they go through a juicer or get made into applesauce or pies. Your local orchard also sells sweet cider which is the best apple juice.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

*SunRype* Pure Not From Concentrate Apple Juice *is* our signature fresh pressed apple juice made with *apples* grown in North America. Our primary source *is* the Okanagan Valley region in BC. ...

Also if you buy juice made from concentrate I doubt you really care where it comes from.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

RO'T, hopefully the seeds aren't being shred.

We have a press and make our own cider/juice. Very interesting to observe the differing yield and flavour different apple batches give you.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Buy apples at a local orchard and get a juicer. My local orchard has 3 grades of apples, the real nice grade, a not so pretty grade for half price, and the least pretty for half that. All the same apples but the cheapest ones are small or misshapen. Which doesn't matter when they go through a juicer or get made into applesauce or pies. Your local orchard also sells sweet cider which is the best apple juice.


My family has an apple orchard. People come to pick the prettiest ones from the trees (some city types squeeze them to determine ripe ones STILL ATTACHED TO THE TREE)

We used to make apple cider with the bulk of slightly imperfect ones. It was 100% apple, unlike any "100% natural" juice today full of chemical taste packs. Today you'll get booked selling homemade apple cider faster than meth

A lot of slightly misshaped apples go to livestock feed and deer bait. People are very picky eaters


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

We did a batch a few weeks ago that I was very hesitant to do. A lot of heavily bruised grounders, and they'd been picked and left in a plastic tub - some were rotting badly. We sorted, discarded all the rotters, did the usual wash and pressed them. Good apples don't need to be pasturized or filtered, particularly if you want cider that will 'go hard'. It won't last as long unless you freeze it though. But this particular batch we made sure to boil and filter. It turned out pretty good but still wouldn't be my preferred apples.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> It turned out pretty good but still wouldn't be my preferred apples.


Are preferred apples anything like preferred shares? :subdued:

ltr


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

there's a lot of adulteration of food products which we consumers still believe are 100% freshly grown in canada. It's those drat!!#% trade treaties that are bringing in cheap substitutes to replace food products that once were our agricultural pride & glory.

for years i've known that local apple juice brands have been importing apple juice concentrate from china, then packaging w water under their own canadian logo name. 

take Rougemont, a well-known big name in apple juice whose shares trade on the TSX as Lassonde Industries. The founder rougemont processing plant was built in the rural town of rougemont, about 80 km SE of montreal, because an order of trappist monks had already established their huge orchard & their monastery there. The rougemont business entrepreneurs figured the brothers would supply all their raw apple needs.

but it turns out, these days, that most Rougemont apple juices are diluted from chinese concentrate. I have no idea what the processing plant is doing, nowadays, with the actual trappist fresh apples.

i do know the apples are real because the brothers operate their orchard today as a you-pick. i've gone there several times, it's a lovely place covering the entire southern side of a low rolling "mountain."

on those visits, one always sees a gigantic Rougemont container parked just inside the monastery gates. It's there to collect all the fallen apples.

the business plan today seems to be to sell all the fresh real apples to the you-pickers, who throng to this famous orchard in droves every autumn. Then the culls, leftovers & ground-fallen apples are sold to the Rougemont plants located in the same town. These plants are, however, primarilly using apple juice concentrte imported from china. The sub-grade apples from the monastery are only an extra feed of cheap fruit to the processing business.

a fun story to investigate would be whether & to what extent the trappist monks are or were shareholders in publicly-traded Lassonde Industries, owners of the Rougemont brand. Who knows, the brothers may have been among the original angel investors.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

humble_pie said:


> a fun story to investigate would be whether & to what extent the trappist monks are or were shareholders in publicly-traded Lassonde Industries, owners of the Rougemont brand. Who knows, the brothers may have been among the original angel investors.


nay someone needs to investigate what other kind of apple cider these trappist monks may be making just sud de montréal 

trappists are world renowned for their fine beer. usually made at limited quantity, only enough to sustain the monastery by their interpretation of the rules of St Benedict. i used to pre order by phone, calls heavily screened, no voice messages allowed. no more than a case at a time. no delivery. and if you weren't on your best behaviour or neglected to return your empties you're blacklisted. any. future. blessing. for. life.

for all we know this ultra rare trappist apple cider could be going straight to the jean coutus, desmarais, bombardiers, irvings, trumps etc


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Maybe the apples need to unionize...

We can only be eaten by people who like Anne with an E.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

like_to_retire said:


> Are preferred apples anything like preferred shares? :subdued:
> ltr


Ha! :applouse: No, my preferred apples have performed better and yielded more than my pref shares I'm afraid.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

m3s said:


> ... no voice messages allowed



many wonderful stories abound. The trappists are a silent order originally from france, devoted to intense prayer, total silence & the production of absolutely sublime food & beverage products.

their big multi-hectare orchard at rougemont is actually many orchards growing about 15 different kinds of apples, pears & plums, along with some specialized shrubs & trees which the brothers grow experimentally together with quebec dept of ag & various university ag schools.

they have a store at the monastery, of course, where they sell all their products. Including hard cider. Everything from cider through jellies/butters to pies & muffins.

it would be difficult to enforce security at the orchards, since they extend to the upper levels of the mountain (mont rouge, il va sans dire), unless the brothers had put in force the powerful security they do use. It's an imposing electrified fence around the exterior perimeter, plus a battalion of big guard dogs who are kept in a large fenced field with numerous kennels just inside the entrance road. The dogs bark their heads off if anyone goes near their strong fence. I imagine that at night, when thieves might try to break in to steal a truckload of apples, those dogs would set up a deafening howl.

the best was the monk stationed at the exit to collect all the money from the you pickers. You had to show your bags, boxes, etc. 

for a silent order, this personnage was the chattiest, blabbiest individual we'd met in weeks. Handsome as a movie star. I'd picked up a few black walnuts still in their husks that had fallen from a black walnut tree growing in one of the high orchards at the top of the mountain. Black walnuts are extremely valuable trees as cabinetmaking woods & they are also difficult to grow as far north as quebec.

i showed the walnuts to the chatty brother at the gate, how did the monastery acquire such a rare tree? immediate jovial dissertation on botany. The tree was one of 3 being grown experimentally for the quebec dept of agriculture. He seemed happy that i'd ID'd the walnut fruits, certainly no reproach or any hint of charging for them.

as for special elixirs being prepared for abbotts, cardinals, desmarais & bombardier clans, not a peep about such wee exquisite drams. All the more reason to suspect that such elixirs do exist. You know how these monks are.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

This isn't new. Good luck finding apple juice that says "100% Canadian grown apples" on anything commercial. If it doesn't say it explicitly, then it's not from Canada, at least not wholly. 

Because if it was Canadian apple juice, it would be front and center as a marketing strategy.

Still lots of Canadian apples around though.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i found a good local source, plan to follow its apple products through the winter so as to monitor their quality.

it's an apple packing coop based out of frelighsburg, another eastern townships ag-centred town maybe 50 km south of rougemont. They're big enough that they have good transportation & delivery, are already medium-known locally. They're small enough that, so far, they've chosen not to degrade/adulterate their products.

i bought several litres of their fresh sweet cider & there's no doubt from the taste, it's the real thing. Not watered at all. The label on the bottle said it contained cider pressed from "15" fresh apples. That's what it tasted like.

the bottles began to ferment fairly quickly so i'm guessing the cider was not pasteurized. The fermentation was OK for about a week, the cider became slightly & pleasantly fizzy. Cider w a sparkle. But eventually fermentation turned the last bottle sour, a kind of sweet/sour beer-like beverage that was good for braising cabbage, onions, potatoes, chicken.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Day trips to the apple orchards are popular with school kids. Many schools will schedule a day at the orchard and the kids enjoy it.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

The program in question was CBC Marketplace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrNFgW_llaE

Pretty well all the apple juices say "Canada Choice", which is just a grade, and doesn't mean anything about origin. But it is confusing to the consumer.

Some will say "Prepared in Canada .. " or "Packaged in Canada ... " which also doesn't tell you where either the apples or concentrate came from.

I found one brand that occasionally said it was made from Canadian apples; I don't know if they change the labeling when they actually have a supply of Canadian apples; or if Consumer Affairs called them out on misleading advertising and made them change the label permanently.


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

humble_pie said:


> many wonderful stories abound. The trappists are a silent order originally from france, devoted to intense prayer, total silence & the production of absolutely sublime food & beverage products.
> 
> their big multi-hectare orchard at rougemont is actually many orchards growing about 15 different kinds of apples, pears & plums, along with some specialized shrubs & trees which the brothers grow experimentally together with quebec dept of ag & various university ag schools.
> 
> ...


Made me think of a large whisky distillery warehouse complex just outside of Dunbarton, Scotland. The complex has a high fence with a barbed wire top as you might expect but what is different is that they kept a very large gaggle (group) of geese. Apparently, geese are very good as guards in that they will start honking like crazy if anyone approaches them and have been used as guards for a very long time in various parts of the world. 
https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/whisky-heroes/26782/scotch-watch-the-ballantine-s-geese/

Sadly, they too have been replaced by 'new technology' these days. But not before I had a chance to see them myself some years ago and wonder why a warehouse complex had geese walking around. My curiosity led to discovering their story.


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

Also similar to the apple juice being sold in Canada not being from Canadian apples, is the story of Heinz Baked Beans. You know, in the blue and black cans you can find in every supermarket. Only, the story is not about Canadian beans sold in Canadian Supermarkets, it is about 'British' Heinz Baked Beans, imported from the UK into Canada and sold to British Expats.

You see, our N. American taste buds prefer a sweeter sauce than that used in the UK. So they taste different and too sweet for UK taste buds. At the same time, Brits do eat a lot of Heinz Beans and it is one of the most 'missed' things from 'home' for a Brit when in another country. Enough so that it is one of the most popular items for the specialized UK Expat import market here in Canada.

Now here's the funny part. Heinz Beans sold in the UK and then exported to that Expat market in other countries including Canada, are actually beans grown in NORTH AMERICA, including Canada. So the beans are grown in Canada, sent to the UK, put into cans and then returned to Canada and sold through specialty British goods stores etc.
https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-heinz-beinz-factory-wigan-2018-1

So a Brit expat in Canada who swears by Heinz Beans not being the same in Canada as in the UK, is WRONG about the beans. It is only the sauce that differs!

Recently, Heinz here in Canada has started selling 'British STYLE Beans'. I guess they realized that they were missing that UK Expat segment of the baked beans market and decided to try and capture it. My wife is a Brit and a comfirmed 'they taste different' advocate. Having now tried the new British STYLE Beans being made by Heinz here in Canada, she rates them as near enough to the same in taste to be accepted. That's a good thing because the imported from the UK cans cost $3.99 a can vs. an on sale price of the new British Style beans at a supermarket here of $0.99!

Brit Expats will go to great lengths to get UK Heinz Beans.
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/heinz-baked-beans-uk-where-buy-1230787/


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

For any Brit Expats who might happen to be in this forum and not yet aware that there is an acceptable equivalent now available in Canada rather than having to find imported cans from the UK, here is what you need to look for in your supermarket.

http://www.heinzbeans.ca/Products/british-style-beans


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## junior minor (Jun 5, 2019)

here is the original post of this report. https://youtu.be/mXccCARrC6k?t=125 (it showed in 2018, apparently) and I'd like to mention that one of the probable reason most apples from here aren't used for juice is because they are handled really well by the pickers. Basically, when they become bruised( and I've worked in trees with those monkeys, trust me, they're really good at what they do, I couldn't compete) it's going for Juice. 

It doesn't take much to bruise apples, so people are really careful about it because they get paid top price when they really watch for it. 

and as for the Heinz thing, well (apparently they're buying only Chinese tomatoes from now on, I read that in the newspaper last year yet can't find the article) 
https://www.easthamptonstar.com/2019925/connections-special-sauce

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2014/04/21/how-was-ketchup-invented/

Ketchup comes from the Hokkien Chinese word, kê-tsiap, the name of a sauce derived from fermented fish. It is believed that traders brought fish sauce from Vietnam to southeastern China.




Ketchup, which was more commonly spelled catsup 100 years ago, has murky origins. Some say it began as a pickled fish sauce that Westerners came upon in China in the 17th century. Other sources say it was a mix of shellfish, herbs, and spices of Indonesian origin that became popular in this country in the early 1800s. In any event, a catsup-y tomato and herb sauce was mentioned in a Jonathon Swift poem in 1730, and catsup was being mass-produced by Heinz by 1876.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

Gosh Dangit! I don't buy a whole lot of processed fruit/vegetable products, but apple juice and ketchup is 2 of em. I always just assumed that the "good stuff", not from concentrate, was made in/of Canada, America, Mexico and its produce. I try to avoid all produce from outside North America, or South America of I have to.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

peterk said:


> Gosh Dangit! I don't buy a whole lot of processed fruit/vegetable products, but apple juice and ketchup is 2 of em. I always just assumed that the "good stuff", not from concentrate, was made in/of Canada, America, Mexico and its produce. I try to avoid all produce from outside North America, or South America of I have to.



speaking as a consumer who'd pretty much always have some bottled/boxed fruit juices in the pantry, it was maybe 8 years ago that i noticed my old pantry standby, rougemont mcIntosh apple juice, had quite obviousy become an artificial or semi-artificial product. It was about the same time i read that the big bottling companies were using apple juice concentrate from china & were no longer using real canadian apples.

i thought that since they're all doing it, not a reason to kick jus de pommes out of the pantry. Pantry is for emergencies anyway - not a place to go all prima donna gourmet - so a substandard apple juice is par for the course, i said to myself.

but the last 4 plastic 1.89 litre bottles rougemont apple juice i bought on special sale in late august were the last straw. They were watered so much that what i bought was expensive water, nothing more. It was slighty flavoured with a whiff of what appeared to be apple concentrate, although it was so faint that it was a bit difficult to tell what fruit.

Rusty is spot on about the cider from local cidreries though. Following the rougemont water experience in august i bought 4 bottles of cider from the small quebec orchard collective i mentioned upthread. What a difference! those were real apples, the cider was delicious.

the only problem is that cider doesn't keep. Even in the fridge it starts to ferment. There are probably ways to fix this, but i'm only a cider beginner so haven't learned about these yet.

but even if local fresh-pressed authentic apple cider is only available briefly during the fall season of each year, it'll be worth it to switch one's consumption habits. 

PS rougemont's parent Lassonde Industries also has the Oasis label, a couple other labels. So i believe they sell across ontario & maybe farther west.

one juice type i haven't tackled yet are the tomato-juice-multi-vegetable juices. So far, at least to me, those juices under the Oasis label appear to be authentic. But i can see how they, too, could be adulterated for cheap. Cooking carrots into a pulp to obtain that thick tomato texture of tomato/V-8 vegetable juices, then dyeing the product bright red & spiking it with a trace of vinegar plus green herb flavourings could probably simulate tomato juice.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

My PC brand apple cider says: "Made from a blend of tree-picked Canadian apples". This is legit, no? "blend" concerns me... why doesn't it say made from a "selection" of Canadian apples, or made "only" from Canadian apples.

My common understanding of "Made from a blend of tree-picked Canadian apples" means that multiple blended species of various, 100% Canadian apples are used... But could it possibly mean "some tree-picked Canadian apples *blended* with other random ****-brown juice?" 

Next I'm going to find out my traditional barrel sauerkraut, made in Poland, is only jarred in Poland, and made from North Korean Cabbages and Chernobyl sea salt. :eek2:

I really need a bloody garden...


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

^^ the label text certainly sounds decent enough

you're a good cook, just tasting ought to confirm to you enough about whether the product is genuine apple juice or not

... but wait, the label says it's a cider? evidently the 2 terms "apple juice" & "apple cider" are used interchangeably. I'm a novice in fresh cider, so far all i know is that if the liquid in the bottle is opaque not clear. it's cider.

the cider i bought recently said "apple juice" on the label. This fooled me into thinking that it was longterm preserved, like ordinary apple juice. I left the bottles out. Within 48 hours they were fizzing pleasantly under fermentation. Promptly refrigerated em but this did not stop the fermentation. The last bottle i used like stock in cooking - leeks, potatoes, chicken - where i thought it gave a real flavour boost.

i have a lot to learn about cider, for example does pasteurizing raw cider stop the possibility of fermentation. Looking forward to gradually soaking up this knowledge. 

ps by coincidence i too buy a polish sauerkraut, which i think is excellent. I believe the brand is Mrs Wolski's. It never occurred to me the salt could be from chernobyl. Nobody around here glowing preternaturally yet, though.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

If it says a blend of Canadian apples, it should be Canadian only apples. The real question is whether or not Loblaws cares, or whether the where-ever factory is separating the China apple concentrate correctly from the Canada apple juice, or if anyone cares at all.

I used to drink a *lot* of apple juice. I have 100% switched to just apples. You can eat a couple decent sized apples for the equivalent of a large cup of juice and you will be a lot more full and get all of the other things squeezed out.


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

humble_pie said:


> ... but wait, the label says it's a cider? evidently the 2 terms "apple juice" & "apple cider" are used interchangeably. I'm a novice in fresh cider, so far all i know is that if the liquid in the bottle is opaque not clear. it's cider.
> 
> the cider i bought recently said "apple juice" on the label. This fooled me into thinking that it was longterm preserved, like ordinary apple juice. I left the bottles out. Within 48 hours they were fizzing pleasantly under fermentation. Promptly refrigerated em but this did not stop the fermentation. The last bottle i used like stock in cooking - leeks, potatoes, chicken - where i thought it gave a real flavour boost.
> 
> i have a lot to learn about cider, for example does pasteurizing raw cider stop the possibility of fermentation. Looking forward to gradually soaking up this knowledge.


It seems that somewhere along the line the term "cider" came to be identified with the opaque stuff. Apple "juice" is filtered, I suppose. Apart from squeezing very gently, I am not sure how one can get juice from an apple without it having some opaque quality.

Where we live, a get-together of locals at the orchard of one of our residents is an annual event at about this time. An old wooden apple press is pressed into service and a quite a few bushels of apples get picked and pressed and everyone goes home with a couple of gallons of cider (after enjoying a pot luck supper and a bunch of oysters picked off the beach and grilled over an alder fire). 

With cider produced in the above fashion, because there is inevitablly some wild yeast on the apple skins, fermentation will take place before too long. Will pasteurizing prevent that? I would guess so, since the heat will kill the yeast. But there will still be sugar in the cider and the pasteurized product should still be able to support a live culture should one be introduced. So, if the cider is left exposed to air, wild yeast might again come to visit. Once that occurs, the yeast will produce alcohol and, before long, acetobacter will likely invade and convert the alcohol into acetic acid and you'll have cider vinegar. Not the worst thing that can happen.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

Mukhang pera said:


> It seems that somewhere along the line the term "cider" came to be identified with the opaque stuff. Apple "juice" is filtered, I suppose. Apart from squeezing very gently, I am not sure how one can get juice from an apple without it having some opaque quality.
> 
> Where we live, a get-together of locals at the orchard of one of our residents is an annual event at about this time. An old wooden apple press is pressed into service and a quite a few bushels of apples get picked and pressed and everyone goes home with a couple of gallons of cider (after enjoying a pot luck supper and a bunch of oysters picked off the beach and grilled over an alder fire).
> 
> With cider produced in the above fashion, because there is inevitablly some wild yeast on the apple skins, fermentation will take place before too long. Will pasteurizing prevent that? I would guess so, since the heat will kill the yeast. But there will still be sugar in the cider and the pasteurized product should still be able to support a live culture should one be introduced. So, if the cider is left exposed to air, wild yeast might again come to visit. Once that occurs, the yeast will produce alcohol and, before long, acetobacter will likely invade and convert the alcohol into acetic acid and you'll have cider vinegar. Not the worst thing that can happen.



thankx for all the info & sorry about this late reply. Lovely description of annual apple cider oyster celebration on your storybook island.

i've re-organized all the apples in our lives over here. First, lots of fresh apples as doctrine says. They can't fake real apples. Next, no more storebought clear preserved "apple" juice which turns out nowadays to be nothing more than water flavoured with imported fruit concentrate. 

finally i'm going to heavily buy real bio fresh-pressed apple cider from the local farmers' marketing cooperative i mentioned. During the months of august through november/december only, since i don't know how to preserve cider. The rest of the year - january through july - other fruit juices. 

none of the above is a hardship. Bless those wilde yeasts.


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