Homemade Apple Cider
The best drink of the year is here! Apple cider is one of those recipes that comes together so easily, looks pretty in a glass, and it will make your house smell incredible. Enjoy it hot or iced with a garnish of cinnamon, star anise, and an apple cider sugar rim for the perfect Fall treat!
Ingredients
Method
For the Apple Cider
- Wash, core, and slice the honeycrisp apples into large chunks (keep the peel on!)
- Place all of the sliced apples into a large pot or dutch oven (make sure it has a tight-fitting lid).
- Add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon sticks, and water. If you would like your apple cider to be a bit thicker/richer than mine, I would recommend only adding 8 cups of water instead of 10.
- Give it a good stir to ensure everything is mixed into the water well.
- Place the pot over medium/high heat on the stove and bring to a boil. Allow this to boil for 30-60 seconds, turn the heat to low so that it's simmering, and cover the pot with the lid.
- Keep it at a simmer for 3 hours, occasionally stirring (I like to gently stir it once every hour).
- After 3 hours, remove the lid and continue to simmer for ~30 minutes (this will help to evaporate some of the water as you don't want it to be too watered down!)
- Remove the pot from the heat and remove all of the solid pieces (apple chunks and cinnamon sticks).
- At this point, you can discard the cinnamon sticks and use an immersion blender to blend the apple chunks into homemade apple sauce if you would like. You can also add some ground cinnamon while blending the apples for cinnamon apple sauce.
- Place a strainer over a large bowl and pour the cider into the bowl through the strainer (this will catch any extra pieces that you don't want in your drink)
For Serving
- Take a clean glass and line the rim with lemon juice
- Dip the rim into the McCormick Apple Cider Finishing Sugar so that it's coated well.
- Carefully pour the apple cider into each glass and garnish with 1 small cinnamon stick & 1 star anise (optional).
- If you would like to serve your apple cider iced, allow the cider to cool off before adding the ice cubes & serving
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