Keeping The Doctor Away

It seems that a trip to Somerset really isn’t complete without a healthy intake of cider, for on my return to the West Country county, with The Husband in tow this time, we visited a cider farm. You can taste cider at numerous establishments in Somerset – in every village there is some sort of a sign, usually homemade, painted with an unsteady hand (perhaps after a few too many tastings of their own) and often with more than one spelling mistake, advertising the opportunity to sample ‘authentic Somerset scrumpy’. Cider has had somewhat of a renaissance recently. Until only a few years ago, anywhere outside of Somerset it was seen as the drink of choice by fifteen year olds, tramps and old men but it has suddenly become trendy again. With dozens of special blends in retro bottles hitting the shops and cider festivals now a firm summer date in many West Country cities, cider is being tried by those who might usually turn their noses up at it. Like me. With memories of cheap, fizzy, artificial-tasting mass-produced cider drunk in my youth and a really rather terrible murky, fetid-smelling cider once tasted in a horrible pub in Taunton, I was not keen on sampling any more of the stuff. But, when in Somerset and all that. And a farm on a lovely summer’s day couldn’t be a bad way to spend an afternoon – there was also the promise of huge chunks of cheese to be gobbled so my taste buds and tummy would be happy even if I didn’t like the cider.


After a romp across the Mendips, we felt we had earned some cheese and cider so off we drove to a farm we were assured was authentic, cheap and, most importantly, produced magnificent cider. What we weren’t told was that it was nigh-on impossible to find. Our local expert, Somerset born and bred, had been once before but got a taxi there and was highly inebriated when he left (so much so in fact that he accepted a lift back by a couple of locals with whom they had been drinking – he sat on a garden chair in the back of a white van. It was OK though, he wore a hard hat). We took a few wrong turns up farm driveways and narrow, twisting country lanes bound for nowhere before we eventually spotted a sign on A4 paper, in biro, with a tiny arrow pointing towards ‘Wilkins Farmhouse Cider’. This was a local farm for local people. They obviously weren’t bothered about cashing in on the tourist craze for cider. And that appealed to me greatly – we were about to visit a truly authentic farm.

Pulling into the farmyard, we weren’t disappointed. There was no car-park, no maps, no signs, no explanations, no ‘History Of...’ boards. Just a farmyard, a farmhouse and the outbuildings in which the cider is made. Plastic school chairs are dotted inside the outbuildings, sat on by bearded men with scruffy hair, reading newspapers and chatting about tractors and racing as they sip their mugs of cider. The Wilkins family have been producing cider since 1917, and have got fairly good at it. We were given glasses of cider straight from the barrels, with a choice of sweet or dry. I plumped for dry but later tried a combination of dry with just a dash of sweet – my own special, customised blend. This is the sort of place where you’re encouraged to stay for hours, going back to pull yourself further half-pint tasters whenever you want, and the owner himself likes nothing more than a bit of a chat. We drank our cider out in the sun on a picnic table after a wander round the orchard (where Wilkins picks each apple by hand) and I don’t know whether it was the setting, the weather or if it really was good cider, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not the only one – Johnny Rotten is a fan and Mick Jagger’s brother often pops in for a cider or two. Wilkins, a ruddy-faced man with a thick Somerset accent and deep laughter lines, has won awards for the quality of his farmhouse cider, something he attributes to the fact that he ‘tastes it, not tests it’ – he has been drinking cider since he was six and admits to drinking at least four pints a day (it used to be sixteen but he has since cut down)! He actually insists that cider is good for you - 'never been sick a day in my life, I haven't'. Well, you know what they say - an apple a day keeps the doctor away!

We left after trying several glasses, having bought huge chunks of cheddar and stilton (both absolutely divine)and twenty pints of cider (in two 10-pint vats, one of which we would consume that night) and paid only a few pounds each. This could be the last place in England where you can get a true bargain.