There were a lot of corny puns I might have been tempted to use in the title to this article, but I don’t want to make light of either cider as a drink, nor Scotland’s first, and as far as I know, only cider shop/bar. There’s no question that cider has increased in popularity manyfold in the past decade, and one major beneficiary has been artisan cider. As with wine, there is a mass of (semi-)industrial product, and a smaller market for well made, small production, cider and perry.

Cider of this sort, and indeed perry (made from pears), especially the sparkling versions, seem to appeal to the same people who are drinking natural wines, and the sparkling petnats (pétillant naturel). In fact, there are some wags who would say that petnat is just sparkling cider but at least twice as expensive. They can have their joke, but I won’t deny that sparkling cider is a similarly refreshing beverage which mostly (not always, as we shall see) costs much less than a natural wine made by the méthode ancestrale.

Aeble Cider Bar and Shop was started by Grant and Jaye Hutchison in May 2021. Grant is, like me, a drummer, and toured the world (he also, unlike me, had a #9 album and played Glasto) with the successful Scottish indie rock band Frightened Rabbit. He moved into running a cider distribution company, re:stalk, when based in Glasgow, whilst Jaye worked for homeless charity Social Bite as an events coordinator and social media manager.

Moving to the East Neuk of Fife in 2020, Anstruther offered a perfect location. A good mix of locals who know cider, because Fife has a number of thriving artisan cider producers, plus a good dose of tourist traffic. The East Neuk is really very pretty indeed, with several small harbours along the Firth of Forth and the famous Fife Coastal Path, and you have St Andrews not far up the road. You can even get there from North Berwick, by occasional boat, as I did in July when we ended a long walk with a trip to Aeble to quench our thirst.

A passion for cider was a good enough reason to open a cider shop, but Grant and Jaye had also noticed the bars they had visited on their Japanese honeymoon, in Tokyo’s Golden Gai (which I agree are inspirational). Here, a small space has a specialist focus for a few people to enjoy food and drink. This was what inspired them to add in the bar, which has proved a good move, and leads to crossover between those drinking in and those after a bottle to take home. It’s a perfect avenue of discovery for the adventurous drinker.

What makes artisan cider special? Lots of things but Grant highlights provenance as a major factor. It mirrors the increase, albeit slowly, in people wanting to know where their food comes from and then how it is produced. Artisan ciders are a good bit more expensive than supermarket fare, but most people can appreciate the difference, even if not everyone can afford to follow the better path. But it’s also easy to argue that the artisan products are better value too when some supermarket ciders are price-inflated by mega marketing budgets and multi-national mega-profits.

Anstruther does have a lot of tourists, many staying every year in static caravans and camp sites. These provide a good cohort of returning customers in the summer months. Also, as I have found, there is a strong will here, as throughout Scotland, to support local businesses in a population which in general is considerably more community-minded than in the South of England.

The key, Grant says, is to provide a welcoming space which doesn’t intimidate anyone. They have their “aficionados”, both visiting and online, but no one should be made to feel they don’t know enough about the subject. Jaye and Grant have the knowledge to help sell someone a product they will enjoy.

Post-Covid trade has been good, especially this year. Word does seem to be getting out, even UK-wide. I asked Grant what is selling well and what are his and Jaye’s favourites. He cited Artistraw from Herefordshire (for their holistic approach), and Wilding from Somerset. These are “natural ciders”, made like natural wine without chemicals. Often you will find varietals listed on the label just like wine. Single apple varieties like Dabinett, Yarlington Mill and even Bramley have noticeably different characteristics.

As I mentioned above, Fife has become a thriving hub for cider. I discovered this through Robbie Fleming who makes small batches, much from fruit foraged from wild apple trees, from a base at Leuchars, just outside St Andrews. It was tasting these ciders at a Cork & Cask Winter Wine Fair in Edinburgh a couple of years ago that drew my attention to Aeble.

Fleming’s Wild Blend includes fruit foraged in Fife as well as some of Robbie’s own apples. £11.50 from Aeble.

Naughton Cider comes from a farm very close to our friends’ place on the Tay. Peter Crawford has experience in Champagne distribution and so he fashions Traditional Method bottle-fermented ciders from the orchard on his parents’ farm. These are the ciders I mentioned that cost as much as a petnat (around £25). Aipple makes cider currently in Perthshire, but using Fife fruit, another producer that comes highly recommended.

Among the most popular sellers in the shop, we have Little Pomona (their Table Cider), a producer probably known to many readers of this blog. Pomme Pomme by Pilton Cider in Somerset is also very popular. Pilton make “keeved cider” where the juice doesn’t fully ferment so you get a sweetness, but they blend in some quince wine, which balances the sweetness with a hint of acidity. That Little Pomona is their entry level cuvée, and the easiest for first timers to get into.

Naturally Grant and Jaye know their international ciders, a few of which they sell in the shop. It wasn’t hard to get a long list of favourites out of Grant. They stock Bordelet, Kerisac and Fournier from France, and they recommend (if you come across them) Baumans, Seattle Cider Co and Original Sin from the USA. According to Grant, Original Sin makes some of the best canned apple cider in the world.

I suspect a lot more bottles would hit the shelves if space were less of a constraint, including some Spanish ciders from Asturias (they do have Trabanco), Galicia and the Basque Country (where cider and Txacoli, the local white wine, bear many resemblances). I’ve also noticed the famous Swiss Cidrerie du Vulcain (their “Transparente” for £22.50) on the shelf.

Needless to say, I have already mentioned to Grant some of my own favourites, like La Garagista’s cider and wine blend, Fleurine (Vermont), Utopia (Czechia’s Bohemian Highlands) whose “Patience” Ice Cider must rank easily in my top-five ciders ever tasted, and Charlie Herring Wines’ various masterpieces of inspiration (Hampshire).

I had to ask about perry, the pear equivalent of apple cider and something I am only starting to discover. Apparently, it is only getting better known slowly, but Grant says “it can be just as, if not more, elegant a drink [as cider] and also more appealing to a sweeter palate”. Ask Grant for a recommendation, as I shall on my next visit.

What else does Aeble stock? They do keep a small selection of wines, but the natural wines they like are often too expensive for their usual market. Their sweet price point is closer to £15 than £25-£30 as is required for most natural wine. They do stock Ciello from Sicily, and Funkstille from Austria, as well as Little Pomona’s own skin contact Orange Wine. These go hand-in-hand with a very good range of snacks (Superbon seaweed flavour crisps sell well in this location). Cloudy apple juice and a small beer selection can also be picked up, including Futtle, whose brewery is just down the road from Anstruther, in St Monans.

To this, you can add, among other products, Pommeau (cider brandy blended with apple juice), ice cider and eau de vie. I have seen the odd product from Julian Temperley’s Somerset Cider Brandy Company too. I remember meeting Julian, via a friend who knew him, in the 1990s, and we used to get plastic containers filled from the vat when we visited. Now his products are found all over the world, and he’s almost as well-known as his famous daughters.

Finally, a bit of fun…extremely popular in the summer are the cider slushies you can see rotating in glass behind the bar. Winter, of course, sees these replaced with mulled cider. Cider is always available on draft, including their own house cider (which also comes in bottle).

As with any self-respecting and hard-working wine shop, Aeble has a full range of events on offer. The next is a bar snacks evening with Edinburgh bakery Hobz on 30 August. A full list of events can be found on Aeble’s web site at www.aeble.co.uk

As can their opening hours. These vary seasonally, but right now they are open Wednesday to Sunday (closed Monday and Tuesday) from 12.00 until 6pm (8pm Friday and Saturday), but I recommend double-checking before making a journey. Of course, they ship throughout the UK, and also offer a cider club option (six bottles with notes every two months, for currently £80 if you like surprises).

Needless to say, I’m only writing about Aeble because, like the few wine shops I’ve highlighted this year (hopefully one more to come soon), I think this is a brilliant place to get to know cider, whether in person or online. If I imparted all the information Grant relayed to me on his way down to London to help judge the International Cider Challenge it would probably be almost enough for a book. They have a very exciting range in the shop, and cider is a drink many of us are keen to drink a lot more of (and perry too, in my case). There are certainly recent books on artisan cider, and even one dedicated to perry due soon, but I think Grant is the perfect person to give anyone wanting a basic grounding in the subject just that.

Anstruther may be a bit off the beaten track, but UK-wide shipping makes it easy to discover what they have on offer. And, of course, Grant (I’ve yet to meet his wife, Jaye) seems an amazingly nice bloke. As many of you will know, that counts an awful lot in my worldview.

Aeble Cider is at 17 Rodger Street, Anstruther, KY10 3DU. It’s just up the hill on the western side of the harbour, where the main car park is located (there’s one disabled space near the shop).

See info@aeble.co.uk or @aeble_ciderbar on Insta.