We’ve done some fairly unusual wine tastings over the past couple of years. Getting people to sit down for a couple of hours to taste through seven different glasses of Beaujolais or listen to a lot of nerdy chat about Sherry production has felt like a stretch but every time we push the format a little bit the tastings have been a rousing success. Having said that, apart from the odd glass here and there we’ve always stuck to wine tastings.
On Thursday 20th March at Little Fitzroy we’ve decided to run our first cider and perry tasting.
If you’re one of the people who regularly grabs 75cl bottles of fancy cider from us then hopefully you don’t need the hard sell on this, it’ll be a selection of the best and most interesting things from our shelves with some great, highly knowledgable chat. For everybody else who is maybe going to need some more convincing that this tasting is for them I’m hoping that we’ve earned your trust at this point. If you come along then I truly believe that we’ll be able to convince you that the breadth of styles and quality of cider being produced in this country are absolutely astonishing. These are some of the best drinks that we have, period, and more people should be enjoying them.
George is the person who is most responsible for a wide selection of these amazing drinks ending up in the shops and pubs of Edinburgh and we’re fortunate enough to have convinced him to come and run the tasting for us. He set up and runs Hard Pressed Cider, a small distributor who for the last four years have been providing an antidote to rubbish, mass-produced and overly sweet cider with a gorgeous range of artisanal ciders which show off the passion and expertise of the people who make them. He’s picked out some of his absolute favourite bottles and will be talking through them along with a few nibbles.
Anyway, I’ve gone on for too long. Here’s all you really need to know.
Cider and Perry tasting with George Julian, starting at 7pm Thursday 20th March at Little Fitzroy. Tickets available here.