Glossary · Cider
Süssmost
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.
Also written Suessmost, Süssmost. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
Unfermented apple or pear juice, literally "sweet must". In Switzerland it is the standard term for the soft drink pressed from cider fruit.
- Subject
- Cider
- Language
- German
- Also written
- Suessmost, Süssmost
In more detail
The Swiss usage is historically significant: the promotion of Süssmost as a non-alcoholic alternative in the early twentieth century, backed by temperance organisations and by the development of reliable pasteurisation, redirected a large share of the Swiss apple crop away from fermentation.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Production
Juice pasteurisation
Heat treatment of juice before fermentation, which inactivates enzymes and microorganisms, and in doing so removes the wild flora that would otherwise ferment it.
Region
Swiss Plateau
The lowland belt between the Jura and the Alps where *Suure Most* is made from standard-tree fruit, and where a mid-twentieth-century federal programme to remove high-stem trees reshaped the landscape.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Most
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.
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.
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
Sweet cider
In Britain and Europe, a cider at the sweet end of the sweetness scale, with enough residual or added sugar to taste distinctly sweet. In North America, the same phrase means fresh unfermented apple juice, usually unfiltered.
History
Temperance movement
The nineteenth and early twentieth-century campaigns against alcohol consumption, which reshaped cider-producing regions by attacking the truck system, promoting unfermented juice, and in some countries removing orchards.
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.