What is this label actually telling me?

Cider · United Kingdom

For duty purposes, a drink made by fermenting apple juice, within a defined strength range and meeting a minimum apparent juice content. Below that juice content, or outside that strength range, the product is charged and labelled as something else.

The minimum juice figure is the source of most arguments about British cider. It is lower than many drinkers assume, and it is a tax definition rather than a quality standard.

Perry · United Kingdom

The same duty definition as cider, applied to pears.

From concentrate · EU and UK

Apple juice from which water was removed for storage and transport, and to which water was returned before fermentation. Labelling rules govern when this must be declared.

Concentrate is not automatically a mark of poor cider — it is how a great deal of the world’s cider is made, and it decouples production from the harvest. What it does remove is the volatile aroma driven off during concentration, which is why concentrate-based cider tends to rely on other things for its character.

Contains sulphites · EU and UK

Required where sulphur dioxide exceeds a stated threshold. It is an allergen declaration, not a warning about quality, and its absence does not mean no sulphite was used — only that the residual level is below the threshold.

Alcohol-free · United Kingdom

A labelling descriptor tied to a maximum alcoholic strength. "Low alcohol", "de-alcoholised" and "alcohol-free" are separate descriptors with separate thresholds, and the thresholds differ between jurisdictions.

CiderHQ does not state the thresholds here because they have changed and differ by country; check the current guidance for where you are.

Sidra natural · Spain

Still, unfiltered, fully fermented cider made to the Asturian or Basque method. Within the protected designations the term is regulated; outside them it is used more loosely.

The long pour — escanciar — is a serving custom of the sidrería, not a legal requirement of the designation, and CiderHQ is careful not to present it as one.

Ice cider · Canada (Quebec)

In Quebec, a regulated term requiring the sugar concentration to be achieved by cold — either by pressing frozen fruit or by freezing the juice — with no added sugar and no artificial freezing shortcuts in some specifications.

Outside Quebec the term is used more loosely, and elsewhere a similar product may be labelled apple ice wine or nothing in particular.

Real cider · United Kingdom

A consumer campaigning definition maintained by CAMRA, broadly requiring full juice, no concentrate, no pasteurisation and no added carbonation. Influential in the UK and not a legal category.

Bouché · France

Literally "corked" — bottled under a cork and cage, and conditioned in the bottle. It indicates a method rather than a sweetness or a quality level.

Fermier · France

Farm-made, from the producer’s own fruit. Not a protected term on its own.

Apfelwein · Germany

German apple wine. Legally a fruit wine rather than a category of its own, and by convention dry, still or lightly sparkling, and sharper than most English cider.

Unfiltered · Everywhere

No agreed definition. It normally means no fine or sterile filtration, and it usually implies haze or sediment — which is a stylistic choice, not a fault.

Single variety · Everywhere

Made predominantly from one cultivar. No jurisdiction sets a minimum percentage for cider, so the proportion is the producer’s to decide.

Vintage · Everywhere

Made from the fruit of a single named harvest. In cider it carries no implication of quality or ageing, only of provenance in time.

Scrumpy · United Kingdom

A colloquial West Country word implying rough, cloudy, strong farm cider. It has no definition, no threshold and no protection, and it appears on products ranging from genuine farmhouse cider to industrially made drinks styled to look like it.

Craft · Everywhere

Nothing. There is no jurisdiction in which "craft" on a cider label carries a definition, a production ceiling or an ownership test.

This is not a criticism of any producer using it. It is a statement about what the word can tell a reader, which is: nothing that can be checked.

Traditional · Everywhere

Undefined, except where it forms part of a protected name such as Traditional Welsh Cider, in which case the specification defines it and it is protected.

Cider · United States

In ordinary American usage, unfermented apple juice. The fermented drink is "hard cider". This is not a regional quirk but the dominant usage, and it is the single largest source of confusion in English-language cider writing.

The federal tax class "hard cider" is narrower still, bounding alcohol strength, carbonation and permitted fruit. A cider outside those bounds is taxed as wine, which is why some American ciders are labelled as wine.

Pear cider · United Kingdom

A commercial term introduced to market pear-based drinks to cider drinkers. It has no separate legal status from perry, and the distinction people draw between them — traditional perry pears against dessert pears or concentrate — is a claim about how a particular product was made, not a difference the words themselves carry.

Producers of traditional perry generally object to the term. CiderHQ records the dispute rather than taking a side: the words are not reliably distinguishable, and what matters is what is on the ingredients list.

Most · Austria and southern Germany

Ambiguous by region. In Austria it usually means the fermented drink; in parts of Germany Most or Süßmost can mean unfermented juice, with Sauermost for the fermented one. Read it against where the bottle came from.