Kotas Reviews Strongbow Honey Hard Apple Cider

Summer marches on for us all, and that means it's time for another booze review! We're gonna take a stroll down to Cider Town for the second time this year, because cider is delicious and everyone should drink more of it. I recently conducted the first of what I hope to be many a grill out this season and the cider was a big hit. In preparation for this event, I picked up a pack of a new flavor from an old favorite. Today we look at Strongbow Honey Hard Apple Cider.

Classy!

Strongbow has been a staple cider in the Kotas Reviews household for many a year, ever since I fell in love with it at the Highlander many moons ago. The Highlander is probably my favorite bar ever and they had cider on tap before it was super popular. You might call them trendsetters, but I just call them grand. Anyway, Strongbow sits at the Dry end of the Sweet to Dry chart of Ciders. It's crisp, tangy, and never cloying. It is, however, incredibly rare to see any variety other than "standard" on the shelves, making this a rarity. It's also an import from Merry Olde England. Anyway, the packaging is almost exactly like their usual, but with lots of orange highlights and that little bee symbol. I like it! Let's see how it looks outta the bottle.

We are, as they say, golden.

This is a lovely looking cider, and perfectly matches my expectations as to what a honey cider should look like. Strongbow is generally on the slightly pale side of golden, but this? This is a rich summer day of golden color. Gorgeous. The taste is another one of those "confounds" expectations experiences. It is rich and sweet, almost cloyingly sweet to the taste with a strong honey overtone. But wait, this is STRONGBOW, the one true dry cider of which all other dry ciders are but shadows. Why is it so sweet? It's not bad, in fact, if you are a sweet cider fan this is going to be a staple, but it's a sweet Strongbow and that simply blows my mind. 

On the FACE Rating System this gets a solid single smiley of enjoyment. Good as a dessert cider and tasty when paired with the savory. This won't quench a thirst however, because the sweetness leaves the mouth feeling a bit sticky, though the taste is exactly what I would expect from a Honey Cider. That this comes from STRONGBOW of all places is mind boggling. If you are a cider drinker, pick it up and try it. It will not be a staple in my house, but it is worth drinking.

Kotas Reviews Angry Orchard Summer Honey Cider

It's the first of May...First of May! Outdoor Grillin' Starts Today!

As you may have guessed from the opening line, today is the First of May, which marks the official start of Outdoor Grilling Season!(Apologies to Jonathon Coulton for butchering his song) As everyone knows, the best thing to have at a cookout is a cold, refreshing Hard Apple Cider. 

Cider drinking has exploded in popularity in recent years. For a long, long while, even during the Era of Alcopops it was two...maybe three brands of hard cider regularly available: Woodchuck, Hornsby's, and if you were lucky, Strong Bow, in maybe one or two different versions of each. Today we have well over twice that many brands (local and national) available, in a wide variety of flavor variations and even several attempts at "Apple Ale" and other apple flavored malted beverages. It's a great time to be a cider drinker is what I'm saying. Today's product comes from the popular Angry Orchard and is their summer seasonal: Summer Honey!

Well helloooooooooo tree!

I rather enjoy Angry Orchard packaging in general, as it usually has a very grumpy apple tree on it. Not this seasonal! This emblem is a sassy, sexy tree that just screams "I am Groot for you!" Some might say it is a little creepy, but really, it's a picture of a tree. Let's not read too much into it, shall we? So the outer packaging is fun and flirty, but how does it look out of the bottle?

Crisp, clear and sassy!

The scent is pure summer, with a very nice clean apple scent tinged with....well, possibly honey, possibly just something else sweet. It's very nice. That's why I was so surprised by the flavor. It is a very nice apple flavor, coupled with a sharp tartness and a very crisp finish, with little to no honey to be found. I rather enjoyed it, except that it was totally not what I was expecting in the slightest.

Angry Orchard varieties, in my experience, lie on the sweeter end of the cider spectrum which runs from the very sweet Woodchuck to the very dry Strongbow. This? This was much drier than I was expecting from a variety called "Summer Honey". It is a good cider, and good on a summer's day with, say, a hot dog and some cole slaw, but it simply flipped my expectations on their head. 

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 1 smiley face. I liked it, but the flavor was a huge surprise in a not entirely good kind of way. If you are a cider drinker, you would be remiss if you passed up this beverage, but this may not be the best thing to try for the cider beginner. Don't be fooled by the look of this, it has a bit of bite!

Kotas Reviews Crabbie's Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer

Now that I have recovered from Halloween shenanigans, it's time to get back to work! Then, after work, in my free time, write up reviews of things I sampled Halloween Weekend. Today's experiment comes courtesy of the lovely people who brought it to the Halloween party I attended (in costume). I do not know who brought it, but they have certainly given me something to write about! Ladies, Gentlemen, my Tens of Fans, I present to you, Crabbie's Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer.

It's Original because it says so!

This look pretty much like, well, a bottle of beer. The label looks like what you would expect from a domestic beer trying to disguise itself as an import, but I like it well enough. I mean, come on it has thistles on it! At least I think those are thistles. Let's crack it open!

Pinkie extended for proper form.

The smell is pleasantly ginger-ish, but not that overwhelming hit of GINGER that some non-alcoholic ginger beers like to bowl you over with. It smells nice and refreshing, actually. Most of the time when I sniff non-alcoholic ginger beer I get walloped in the nose with this wave of hyper gingerness, but not in this case! Now, for the sampling!

Why yes, I WILL take the Physical Challenge

This is a tasty beverage. It's nice and ginger-y, definitely a step above your mass market ginger ales, but it's not completely punch-you-in-the-mouth gingery. This will not clear our your sinuses from drinking it, but on the plus side, you can actually drink and enjoy it without too much trouble. Very refreshing, and you can hardly taste the booze. Which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about boozing it up with sweeter things.

On the FACE Rating System, I give this 2 smiley faces. Definitely not what I expected, but I was nicely surprised at how tasty and drinkable this beverage is. If you don't like ginger, avoid this, but for everyone else? Give it a try!