Glossary · Cider
Most
German. Kept in its own language here rather than translated into the nearest English word, because the nearest English word is usually cut on a different axis.
Definition
In German-speaking Europe, either fresh fruit juice or the fermented drink made from it. Which one it means is settled by the country you are standing in, and in Austria it is settled by statute.
- Subject
- Cider
- Language
- German
In more detail
In *Austria the fermented sense is the law. The Obstweinverordnung directs that pome fruit wine is to be designated Obstwein, Obstmost or Most, and unfermented juice is a different legal product called Süßmost*. An Austrian label reading Most is a fermented drink of at least 1.2 % vol, and at least 5 % vol if it names a federal state.
In *Germany the drink-sense of Most is a south-western regional product with its own food-code entry, and it is not a synonym for Apfelwein. Schwäbischer, Württemberger and Badischer Most run to at least 4 % vol and 12 g/l sugar-free extract, and may be made with up to a third water. Apfelwein needs 5 % vol, 18 g/l extract, and no water at all. In winemaking usage the same word means the unfermented must, which is where Mostgewicht* comes from.
In *Switzerland the bare word attaches to the unfermented side of the trade — the pressing house is a Mosterei and the fruit Mostäpfel — and the drink needs a qualifier: Süssmost for the juice, saurer Most* for the fermented one.
So three neighbouring traditions use one word for three things, and a fourth sense — the pressing rather than the drink — sits underneath all of them. The word shares a root with English must, which in cider English has narrowed to mean unfermented juice specifically.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Style
Most
The farmhouse fermented fruit drink of Austria and southern Germany, made from apples, pears or both, and belonging to a meadow-orchard landscape as much as to a recipe.
Region
Mostviertel
The south-western quarter of Lower Austria, where standard perry pear trees stand over grazed pasture on a scale found almost nowhere else, and where *Most* means a dry pear drink rather than an apple one.
Country
Austria
Home of one of the world’s three great perry pear landscapes: in the Mostviertel, *Most* usually means a dry, tannic pear drink made from enormous standard trees standing over grazed pasture.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Milling and pressing
Must
Freshly pressed, unfermented juice, from the moment it leaves the press until fermentation begins. The word is borrowed from wine-making and shares a root with German *Most*.
Cider
Süssmost
Unfermented apple or pear juice, literally "sweet must". In Switzerland it is the standard term for the soft drink pressed from cider fruit.
Cider
Sauermost
Fermented apple juice in Swiss and southern German usage — "sour must" — as opposed to the unfermented *Süssmost*. Typically dry, acidic and modest in strength.
Perry
Birnenmost
Pear must, and by extension the fermented pear drink of Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany — the central European equivalent of perry.
Perry
Mostbirne
A pear cultivar grown for must rather than for eating in Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany — the central European counterpart of a perry pear.
Cider
Apfelwein
German apple wine: cider fermented dry from culinary and wild apples, usually still or lightly sparkling, sharply acidic and served in the Frankfurt region as a regional speciality.
Cider
Obstwein
In Austrian law, the umbrella term for every fermented fruit drink, pome fruit included. In German usage it is not a category at all — the German food code says *Fruchtwein*, and means only the non-pome ones.
Cider
Zider
A defined Austrian category: fruit juice blended with fruit wine of the same fruit group, to 5 % vol and 2.5 bar. Austria has a statutory definition of cider; Germany, until 2026, had none at all.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Hochschule Geisenheim University — beverage technology
Hochschule Geisenheim · university · retrieved 2026-08-24
German beverage-technology research covering apple wine and fruit juice processing, including the enzymology of clarification.
Obstweinverordnung, BGBl. II Nr. 18/2014, consolidated
Republic of Austria, made under §§ 35, 36 and 37(1) of the Weingesetz 2009; consolidated text published by the Bundeskellereiinspektion · legislation · passage verified 2026-08-25
The instrument that decides what Most legally is in Austria, and the answer is: a fermented drink. That single fact is the one most often got wrong in English writing, because Most means the unfermented juice in Switzerland and is ambiguous in Germany. The ordinance also names two pear cultivars individually — Speckbirne and Schweizer Wasserbirne — in a derogation lowering their minimum acidity, which is a legislature encoding pomology. Retrieved from the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror because the Austrian legal information system refused every automated request.
Deutsche Lebensmittelbuch-Kommission, BAnz AT 02.03.2026 B5, GMBl 9/2026 S. 184–189; published by the Bundesministerium für Landwirtschaft, Ernährung und Heimat · standards body · passage verified 2026-08-25
Where the German numbers actually are. The Leitsätze are qualified expert opinion rather than legislation — courts use them as evidence of customary trade practice — but they are the only German statement of what an Apfelwein must contain, and they are followed. Retrieved as PDF and read on 2026-08-25, five months after this recast took effect. Two changes in the recast matter to this site. It creates *Apfel Cider* and *Birnen Cider* as a named category for the first time, at 1.2 to 8.5 % vol with up to 50 per cent water, concentrate and added aroma permitted — a category defined so as to admit almost everything the Apfelwein entry excludes. And it splits the word Speierling from the fruit: the flavour indication carries on meaning a tannic, acid-led apple wine, and only the phrase *mit Speierling-Früchten* now says that any service-tree fruit was used.