Moss Cider....

I've been trying to get my hands on some of this cider for a while. It's hard to come by. For those who don't know it, it's a cider made in one of Manchester's more interesting suburbs, Moss Side, just south of the city centre on the airport road.

Moss Side had a fearsome reputation in the 80s and 90s for drugs and gang violence. But the place has changed considerably due to local initiatives and assertive police action. While it's not Didsbury or Chorlton, it's now seen as a place where people want to move in to.

The wittily named Moss Cider started life in 2010 when a couple of guys picked some apples from a neglected apple tree in Moss Side and produced a 100 bottles of cider. This year production has grown to 14,000 bottles all made from apples growing on the city's streets and from the glut of apples that appears in people's gardens. Recently they have set up an orchard of Hereford apple trees on the site of an old bus station on the edge of Moss Side and there's a tiny apple orchard on the terrace outside the Manchester Art Gallery on Moseley Street in the city centre.

What started as a bit of fun seems to have grown into a thriving enterprise. The cider is highly thought of by the Manchester foodie community and is, I think, the only urban cider in the UK. I'm going to have one of these bottles tomorrow as I'm desperate to try it but the other two are going o be left for about three weeks while they condition in the bottle.....