Joe McNamee: Why we should savour the flavour of a fine Irish cider this autumn

"In my youth we drank dirty black porter but as soon as the sun shone, we switched to cider and if we were lucky enough to hit a heatwave, we drank it until our stomachs groaned.  (The concept of perhaps not drinking was still a novel notion.)"

Cork's Stonewell Cider

I wrote a few weeks ago of autumn and its harvest bounty, including a brief mention of apples.

To be honest, the entire column could have been devoted to apples in autumn, possibly the quintessential symbol of a bountiful harvest, a fruit that keeps on giving right the way through the deepest, darkest depths of winter and well on into the following spring, if properly stored.