Style: Irish cider
Producer: Carlow Brewing Co
Origin: Ireland
Size: 50cl
Alcohol: 4.5%
Price: 27kr
Systembolaget: 99543
This is produced at the County Meath Orchard using their own spring water and their very own Irish honey bees to pollinate the trees. It is produced using a wide range of apples such as Dabinet, Michelin, Ashton Bitter, Yarlington Mill and Gilly Bittersweet Cider apples. Launched in June 2017, Cooney’s Cider was named after the founder, Pat Cooney, who used to own Ireland’s biggest drinks distribution company before he sold it to C&C (who own Bulmers cider among many other brands). This cider was a complete shot in the dark when I bought it for the tasting as I had never even heard of it before finding it on the Systembolaget website. To be honest, it wasn’t all that great.
This was light gold with low carbonation, which was surprising as I expected it to be a bit more lively than it was. The aroma was rather mild but pleasant, with over ripe banana notes curiously coming through strongly instead of the expected big apple hit. The first sip was light and fizzy on the palate, but it had an almost artificial apple flavour, which quickly disappeared to leave a short banana aftertaste on the tongue. Again, I didn’t expect the over ripe banana tones to be as strong as they were, but they were mentioned by a number of people. It was quite sticky on the palate, and left the tongue with a sweet coating after swallowing.
Well, this was certainly strange. I have no idea where all the banana flavours were coming from, and it wasn’t what I expected by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not the biggest fan of Irish cider to be truthful, as I much prefer the crisp English dry cider if I have a choice. This was drinkable, but I’m not sure that I would buy it again anytime soon, as I believe there are better Irish ciders out there on the market today.