For many, the Thanksgiving meal is the culinary apex of the year. Rolling pins find their way out of dusty corners, choice ingredients are stockpiled over the preceding week, the flesh of freshly picked pumpkins is scooped out with tiny bare hands; heck, most ovens see more action on the fourth Thursday of November than they do all year. Two or three or even four generations preparing a meal together is a celebration indeed.

Thankfully, someone usually remembers to bring a nice bottle of wine or Champagne to kick off the festivities. But these days, a growing number of conscientious eaters are committed to locally sourcing the makings of their holiday meals. So why not celebrate the most American of holidays with the original local American beverage: hard cider. (OK, maybe the fourth of July is the most American holiday, but save the local beer for that one!) Hard cider is a true treat for fall, when apple harvests are at their peak.

Cider makers are bobbing up all over this country once again, and rededicating themselves to that pre-Prohibition pursuit of balanced acidity and sweetness. Unlike wine and grapes, you can usually still taste apple when you sip cider. And not just any apple: If you’re lucky, you’ll enjoy the specific combination of apple varieties whose tasty tongue-dance has been carefully choreographed by a real artisan. And this is where you really get to enjoy regional variation. Steve Wood up at Farnum Hill Ciders in New Hampshire simply cannot grow the heat-loving ‘Virginia Hewe's’ crabapples that Diane Flynt enjoys so well down at Foggy Ridge Cider in the blue ridge mountains of Virginia. But Steve grows numerous apple varieties well-suited to the New England climate, such as a tasty ‘Kingston Black,’ which makes a remarkable still cider but refuses to grow in the South. He shares these well-adjusted apples of French, English and American descent with other cider makers in the region, too, like West County Cider in Massachusetts.

Hard ciders range from dry and very tart with nary a bubble in sight, to supersweet and Champagne-bubbly. Last night, I got to try a wonderful dessert cider fortified with apple brandy (Pippin Gold), and a spectacular semi-dry cider from Slyboro Ciderhouse, which at the foothills of the Adirondacks, is in my neck of the woods. Slyboro Hidden Star is made from a blend of ‘Northern Spy’ and ‘Liberty’ apples grown on the fertile soil of New York state’s oldest U-pick orchard, and it definitely deserves the Double Gold Medal it won at last year’s International Eastern Wine Competition. (The raw sheep's milk cheese I relished it with — Hidden Springs Ocooch Mountain — deserves the awards it has won, too!)

So this Thanksgiving, why not pair that roasted turkey leg with a well-made local hard cider? Or a nonalcoholic sweet cider — they make those too! Try a few. Experiment to see what you like. But most importantly, find a good cider maker near you and make that artist your friend.

RESOURCES

* To locate artisan cider makers near you, search by ZIP code at Local Harvest. And don’t forget to ask the wine merchants in your closest shop if they carry any local ciders. Consumer interest is a key ingredient to the success of this old-new American industry.

* To learn more about the how-to and history of cider making, look for these wonderful books:

  Cider, Hard and Sweet by Ben Watson
  Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx
  Making the Best Apple Cider by Annie Proulx (an e-book available from our online store)
  The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World (Part I of IV) by Michael Pollan

* And, oh yeah, you can also learn more in the many articles on cider we’ve published over the years:

  Enjoy Delicious Apple Cider, Sweet and Hard by Megan Phelps
  Fall’s Sweetest Harvest by John Stuart
  Make Your Own Hard Cider by Nathan Poell
  Falling for Apples by Noel Perrin
  Get Ready for Cider Pressin’ by Judy White
  Juice of the Apple by Michael Phillips
  Pouring Apple Cider by Richard Varr (from Grit, our sister magazine)

* Want to recommend a great local cider to our readers? You’re in luck — that’s what our comments section is for!