Today we celebrate one of everyone’s favorite drink when autumn starts, a hot cup of mulled cider. This day is observed annually on September 30th.
During fall, the weather changes, from the hot summer day, to cool weather heading to winter. Autumn features temperate climates, the shedding of leaves, and also marks the fall harvest, the time of the year when apples are most abundant. The time of the year when people start baking pies, mostly from harvesting apples and pumpkins. I don’t eat pumpkin pies but Apple pies are my favorite, especially when you serve it hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
During this season, most folks drink some hot suiting drinks like hot cocoa, and hot mulled apple cider. Hot mulled apple cider, a delicious warm drink spiced with some nutmeg and cinnamon enjoyed during a chilly evening while watching the trees turn into crimson, gold or orange color.
Mulled cider is a traditional fall and winter drink. It is made by heating up some cider to almost boiling and adding some orange peel, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and other spices while simmering it. The aroma of cooking hot cider in your house will definitely smell the essence of fall while the cider steeps on the stove.
Cider is usually made with a cider press made from apples. It is one of the popular drink in America during colonial times and was drank by people of all ages, and is still enjoyed by most folks today. Traditionally the method of squeezing the juice from the apples involves placing sweet straw or haircloths between the layers of pomace. This will alternate with slatted ashwood racks until there is a pile of ten or twelve layers. The squeezed juice is then placed into either open vats or closed casks. The pressed pulp of the apple is given to farm for animal feed for winter or used for making liqueurs if not discarded.
Here in the US, “cider” often refers to unfiltered apple juice, often made with a distinct sweet-tart taste, and the fermented beverage is known as “hard cider”. In either form, apple cider is seasonally produced in autumn. It is traditionally served on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and various New Year’s Eve holidays, sometimes serve as cocktails or heated and mulled.
So, today, celebrate this day by having some mulled cider and enjoy it with your family with a little gathering and conversation while relaxing after a sumptuous dinner. Share on social media a photo of you enjoying your hot cup of mulled cider using #NationalHotMulledCider.
1927 Babe Ruth hits 60th homer of 1927 season
On September 30, 1927, Babe Ruth hits his 60th home run of the 1927 season and with it sets a record that would stand for 34 years.
George Herman Ruth was born February 6, 1895, in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the first of eight children, but only he and a sister survived infancy. Ruth’s father was a saloon keeper on Baltimore’s waterfront, and the young George, known as “Gig” (pronounced with soft g’s) to his family, was known as a troublemaker from an early age. At seven, his truancy from school led his parents to declare him incorrigible, and he was sent to an orphanage, St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. Ruth lived there until he was 19 in 1914 when he was signed as a pitcher by the Baltimore Orioles.
That same summer, Ruth’s contract was sold by the Orioles to the Boston Red Sox. His new teammates called him “Babe,” short for baby, for his naiveté, but his talent was already maturing, and he was almost immediately recognized as the best pitcher on one of the great teams of the 1910s. He set a record between 1916 and 1918 with 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play, including a 14-inning game in 1916 in which he pitched every inning, giving up only a run in the first.
(excerpted from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/babe-ruth-hits-60th-homer-of-1927-season)
