What does ciderkin mean?
Ciderkin is a weak, mildly fermented drink traditionally made by pouring water over apple pomace — the crushed skins, cores, and pulp left behind after cider has been pressed — and allowing the mixture to ferment briefly. Because most of the sugar had already been extracted for the main batch of cider, ciderkin contained only a small amount of alcohol, making it suitable for drinking throughout the working day. The word blends 'cider' with the diminutive suffix '-kin', literally suggesting a lesser or 'little' cider. Common in early modern England and later in colonial America, it was the everyday beverage of farm laborers and servants, prized less for flavor than for being safe, cheap, and refreshing. Though rarely made today, ciderkin survives as a term in agricultural and culinary history, a reminder of a time when frugality shaped what people drank.
nounA weak, low-alcohol drink made by pouring water onto the pressed pulp (pomace) of apples after the juice for regular cider has been extracted and letting it ferment slightly; historically a humble farmhouse beverage.
- A weak, lightly fermented drink made by adding water to apple pomace after the main cider pressing.
"After the strong cider was pressed, the farmhands quenched their thirst through the day on ciderkin."
"The laborers drank ciderkin at midday because its low alcohol left them fit to keep working."
"In old Devon farmhouses, nothing went to waste: even the spent apple pulp yielded a pitcher of cloudy ciderkin."
Rarely used in the plural; the word typically appears as an uncountable mass noun referring to the drink itself.
"The cellar held barrels of both fine cider and rough ciderkins from the second pressing."
Ciderkin was once so cheap and weak that English farm laborers were paid partly in it — a drink born from squeezing the last drop out of the apple scraps.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of ciderkin
Ciderkin combines 'cider' — which entered English via French 'cidre' and ultimately traces back through Late Latin to Greek 'sikera', from Hebrew 'shekhar' meaning strong drink — with '-kin', a diminutive suffix borrowed into Middle English from Middle Dutch or Flemish. It thus means, quite literally, a 'little cider' or inferior second pressing. The same Dutch-derived suffix produced familiar English formations such as 'napkin', 'lambkin', and 'manikin'. The word appears in English sources from around the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when second-pressing drinks were a staple of rural households.
How ciderkin is actually used
Ciderkin is now an archaic or historical term, encountered mainly in accounts of early modern English and colonial American rural life. It carried connotations of frugality and humble status, being the drink of servants and field hands rather than the household's best cider.
Easily confused with ciderkin
Cider is the full-strength fermented juice of apples, whereas ciderkin is a weaker drink made by re-steeping the already-pressed apple pulp in water.
Applejack is a concentrated, high-proof apple brandy produced by freeze distillation, while ciderkin is a very low-alcohol beverage.