Has anyone ever tried selling turbo cider?

[bigdave]

I gave a bloke at work a bottle of my TC last week and he loved it so much he wants to buy more from me. Obviously I can't sell it to him (I've offered to show him how to make it instead) but it did get me wondering. Are there any commercial brewers who make Turbo Cider? I imagine there aren't as the cost of apple juice would eat away at any profit but I was still wondering.

[mshergold]

I guess the cheaper end of the stron cider market could maybe classed as turbo cider.

[themadhippy]

I guess the cheaper end of the stron cider market could maybe classed as turbo cider.

Dont be silly the nearest that stuff gets to an apple is when one of the chemical engineers who makes the stuff finds one in his lunchbox

[Eadweard]

you can sell up to 7000 litres of cider without paying duty.

[oldbloke]

you can sell up to 7000 litres of cider without paying duty.

Didn't know that. Any regulations one does have to stick to?

[asd]

You have to register, then you apply for an exemption! The regime is a lot more benign than the beer duties, as you can provide to your household, give it away to employees, etc. You can find the rules on HMRC website.
Regards,

Simon.

[mshergold]

I just thought i'd better say that I wasn't having a dig at turbo cider - I quite like it. Anyway, themadhippy got me thinking:

Dont be silly the nearest that stuff gets to an apple is when one of the chemical engineers who makes the stuff finds one in his lunchbox

I did a quick search and found this on the Alchol Research UK website:

One brewer said “What you can’t do is ferment sugar and add a bit of apple flavouring. It wouldn’t work and you couldn’t class it as the drink that pays cider duty” However white cider is no longer made from cider apples, but from juice concentrate which is normally imported from wherever it is the cheapest.

The page contains some quite interesting information on cider in general. Whereas Malcolm Gluck can do something to himself that rhymes with his surname with his bottle of Noman cider - preferably with bottle shaken, wire cage removed and cork (or should that be bottle) twisted a little before inserting cork end first.

[Pinto]

I wasn't aware that you could sell your cider mind you, I have "made" it for other people when they paid for the ingredients for me.

Quite happy to do that, but tbh i'd rather do it for fun and friends than sale

[phil55494]

There are other considerations if you want to sell your cider than just the HMRC duty side of it (though that is very important).
The Cider Workshop - Comercial Considerations has basic information on licensing, environmental health, labelling etc.

As for has anyone sold TC before, Andrew Lea who used to work for the Long Ashton research centre near Bristol did some work on juice content in cider

[danbrew]

If you could get away with fermenting shop bought apple juice and it being considered cider by HMRC then you'd be better sourcing the juice from somewhere like cobel.co.uk (they are very helpfull if you email them...) where you can get larger quantities of the same stuff you buy in the shops but much cheaper....

[MartinC]

Bear in mind the fact that any "cider" over 8.5% is no longer classed a cider by HMRC and the 7000 litre rule no longer applies regarding the payment of duty. Over 8.5% and you're into a whole new field called "made wine", far more complicated.
Martin

[Belter]

I always imagined large scale cider brewers other than the like of Westons, Thatchers etc would be using apple juice anyway

They should call it real cider and have CAMRC

[jmc]

There are other considerations if you want to sell your cider than just the HMRC duty side of it (though that is very important).
The Cider Workshop - Comercial Considerations has basic information on licensing, environmental health, labelling etc.

As for has anyone sold TC before, Andrew Lea who used to work for the Long Ashton research centre near Bristol did some work on juice content in cider

interesting link
quote from above juice content in cider link

For the present discussion, pages 1 - 8 and pages 35 - 41 are the most relevant. These show that the typical apple juice content of a UK cider at the time of the survey was just 30%. The rest is water-diluted fermented sugar syrup. The lowest juice content we found in our work was just 7% apple juice. It was also interesting to find that about a quarter of the (draught) ciders at a major Cider Festival were diluted too. Is this what we'd expect?

I hadn't realised that most pub cider was brewed to around 12 - 14% ABV (with sugar additions) and then watered down & sweetened for resale.

Better get another batch of TC on!

[MartinC]

I always imagined large scale cider brewers other than the like of Westons, Thatchers etc would be using apple juice anyway

No, they have their own orchards and may buy apples in from elsewhere. However, to maintain consistency, a lot of juice gets stored in stainless steel tanks from one year to another (pasteurised presumably).

[MartinC]

These show that the typical apple juice content of a UK cider at the time of the survey was just 30%. The rest is water-diluted fermented sugar syrup. The lowest juice content we found in our work was just 7% apple juice.

This is old information. The current regulations states a minimum juice content of 30%. To those of us who are "craft" commercial cider makers, we can't understand why the legal limit isn't at least 95%. It seems that the whole issue is controlled by the EU winemakers who really don't want you to know what goes on in their trade.

If anyone's interested in the rules & regs, they are published as "Notice 162" on the HMRC web site:-
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPort ... e=document
(or just serach for "Notice 162" on their web site.

Cheers,
Martin