The Apple County

Tipperary is apple country and, as with cheese and beef, the apples here get transformed, by the best people, into something superlative.

The leading exponent of superb apple juice is Con Traas, of the (imaginatively titled) The Apple Farm, on the road between Cahir and Clonmel. Here is how you make a superb apple juice. First of all, you harvest by hand, so that the sugar content is as high as 16% (in normal apples, 9% is standard). You choose varieties carefully, so that the characteristics of the blend are distinctive, so Mr Traas uses the unusual Karmijn, along with Bramley’s Seedling.

The Karmijn performs well in Ireland’s climate, as well as having the aroma characteristics of a tree-ripened Cox’s Orange Pippin, and thus features hundreds of esters and other volatiles. You then pulp the apples, press the pulp in a rack and cloth press, collect and bottle the juice and pasteurise in bottle to prevent fermentation.

And when you have done all this, what do you get? A drink worthy of the Gods, is what. This is an incredibly fine apple juice. The best fun is to take a trip to the (imaginatively entitled) The Apple Farm, to buy from the man himself, though they are becoming more widely distributed as time goes on.

(Moorstown, Cahir, Co Tipperary, Tel: (052) 41459, signposted on N24 between Cahir and Clonmel)