House Rules: A Three-Bottle Cider Blend for November’s Murky Middle

November has a particular kind of darkness. Not the romantic, candlelit sort; the sort that arrives at 4.15pm and makes you consider a second jacket potato. It is also, conveniently, cider weather. Yet the supermarket shelf can feel like a row of soloists: one bottle all sharpness, another all tannin and swagger, a third fruity enough to be mistaken for school squash. The sensible response is not to pick a favourite. It is to blend them.

House cider is not cheating

Every cider maker blends. Some do it across orchards, some across varieties, some across tanks that have been quietly getting on with their own business since October. Doing the same at home is not a cheeky shortcut; it is the oldest trick in the book, performed with a jug and a slightly overexcited notebook.

The aim is a house cider: a blend you can make again, recognise and proudly serve to people who will ask what it is. It does not need a wax seal or a backstory involving a grandfather named Arthur. It needs three bottles with clearly different jobs.

Cast your three players

You are looking for one dry bottle, one tannic bottle and one fruity bottle. Not “sweet versus dry” — that is only half the story. Think of them as backbone, grip and top note.

The dry bottle is the base. It should taste brisk and appley, with enough acidity to keep the whole thing awake. The tannic bottle brings the grip: that drying, tea-leaf, slightly leathery sensation that makes cider feel grown-up rather than gassy. The fruity bottle is the seasoning — aromatic, generous, perhaps a little sweeter, but not so loud that it drowns the room.

Brands rotate and supermarket ranges change, so judge by style rather than label worship. A dry Herefordshire-style cider, a vintage or oak-aged tannic number and a fruit-forward western-style bottle will get you most of the way there. Ignore the words “craft” and “premium” if they are doing more work than the liquid.

The 60/25/15 starting point

For a 500ml test jug, begin with 300ml dry, 125ml tannic and 75ml fruity. That is 60/25/15 — dry-led, with enough tannin to give it a spine and enough fruit to stop it tasting like a lecture.

Stir gently, or swirl the jug rather than shaking it. Leave it for ten minutes. Cider needs a moment to settle into itself, like a cat entering a room. Taste it at around 8–10°C: cool, not fridge-cold. If it feels thin or sharp, add a splash more fruity. If it feels soft and vague, add tannic in 25ml increments. If it tastes like a tea bag left in since Tuesday, you have overdone the tannin — add dry cider, not sugar.

Once you have a ratio you like, scale it up. Three 500ml bottles will make roughly 1.5 litres, which is enough for a small gathering and just enough for regrets.

What to taste for

A good house blend should taste like one cider with three opinions, not three ciders arguing in a lift. Check the aroma first: is it fresh apple, baked apple, citrus peel, or something pleasantly farmyard? Then acidity — does it make your mouth water? Tannin — does it dry your gums without stripping them? Fruit — is it present without being syrupy? Finish — does it stop cleanly, or leave you reaching for water?

Four common blending mistakes

1. Blending everything ice-cold. Cold numbs the tannin and flattens the aroma. You will end up overcorrecting and wondering why your masterpiece tastes of nothing.
2. Treating the tannic bottle as the base. It is a seasoning, not the main course. Start dry-led and add grip gradually.
3. Chasing a perfect ratio before tasting. Recipes are starting points. Your palate, your bottles and your kitchen temperature all have opinions.
4. Not writing it down. The greatest house cider in Britain is useless if you cannot remember whether it was 60/25/15 or 55/30/15 after the third glass.

Host a small November blending night

Keep it small: four to six people, three bottles, one jug and a bowl of something salty. Blind-taste the bottles first, labelled A, B and C. Give everyone a small measure of each, then build the base blend together. Let each guest tweak their own glass with extra drops of this or that, and record the results.

Serve with bread, Cheddar and a few slices of apple. This is not a formal tasting; it is a kitchen-table experiment with a good soundtrack. The winner gets their blend named after them, their street or, ideally, the household cat.

The Scrumpi three-bottle scorecard

Print this page, or copy the table into a notebook. Score each bottle from 1 to 5 before blending, then score your final house blend.

The house blend is the point

A house cider is not a secret formula; it is a blend you can repeat on a dark Tuesday when the pub is too far and the sofa is too close. Get the three roles right, start dry-led, taste as you go, and write down what worked. November’s murky middle deserves better than a lonely bottle and a packet of crisps.