I was at Gristides grumbling to myself that they sell beer but not wine, when I realized they also sell hard apple cider. So I bought a bottle of Scrumpy's Organic Cider and wow do I love this. And now that my liver is getting old (even if I am still 25 in my own mind) hard cider is a nice alternative with half the alcohol of wine. On the other hand, it's so delicious it's hard to stop drinking and what it lacks in alcohol it makes up for in calories. But it's nice to have an alternative to wine - I'm never going to be a big fan of beer, that stuff is gross. And scotch tastes like what lighter fluid must taste like.
Apparently cider was big in the American colonies and popular right up to Prohibition - once that came along farmers destroyed their orchards with hard-cider-making apples and replaced them with eating and juice varieties. But the hard cider industry is coming back.
I ordered cider at a Bareburger recently and was excited to find the brand they had - McKenzie's - offers seasonal varieties and since it was still winter they had a cider mulled with cinnamon and nutmeg. Amazing.