Savanna Dry Cider

Savanna, widely available in supermarkets as a cider that is from South Africa. But who are they? Well, Savanna is produced by Distell, who ironically call themselves a 'brewery' (it clearly is the equivalent of the UK 'producer'). They also produce 'Hunters Dry', although I am not sure if this is available in the UK.

Looking at their website (the UK one), it shows a bottle of Savanna with a slice of lemon in the top. Well, thats a change from 'serving over ice', but I must say its not a positive change! So, how does it taste (without the lemon!).

It smells like Appletize, and tastes just like apple juice... an alcoholic Appletize! Its also fairly sweet; presumably because of the apples used (I am not judging whether this is a full juice cider, though I rather think not). On a few more tastes it is definitely beyond dry. In fact I would go as far as to say that this is a medium cider.

Its not a horrible cider. Well, I guess its not very cidery - UK cidery I mean. It may be that this is the style of South African ciders. I guess its because of this that it is so hard to classify or use anything to measure against it. Its a smooth cider that tastes of apples. My experience of making cider suggests that this shouldn't taste quite so much like apple juice which leads me to think its been adjusted though. And it does feel a bit too safe - that dulled down cider taste that seems to be common of the lower juice end of the cider spectrum.

As far as my cidery friend is concerned, I would probably give this one a bit of a miss, although there is nothing wrong or faulty with it. It just tastes a bit manufactured to me.

Now, to score a cider from South Africa when I haven't tried any other African ciders. I guess it has to stand amongst the others. 55/100 is probably a bit weak, but I think its fairly accurate for me (personally)