Escanciar
To Escanciar is to pour cider into the glass in the Asturian manner. You hold the bottle above your head and the glass at waist level. This aerates the otherwise still (uncarbonated) cider.
The image of a waiter pouring cider from a bottle held high above their head, into a glass held as low as possible, all while staring pointedly at neither glass nor bottle, is one of the defining images of Asturias. So emblematic is that figure that there are more than one statue in Asturias of a cider pourer. One of the most famous is in the Plaza San Juan in Mieres del Camino.
Why Pour Cider This way?
Asturian (and Basque) ciders are still – uncarbonated. Unlike almost all other commercial ciders in the world, they do not have any added fizz to them. In Asturias, people bottle cider like wine. Indeed, much of the English speaking world considers them to be “apple wine”. The word cider there applies mostly to carbonated beverages. Or in the peculiar American case, for a sweetened, unfiltered apple juice that is not fermented. The closest product elsewhere is the apfelwein of southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
However, Asturias has a historical memory of drinking cider from huge barrels. These barrels are tapped (espichar) and the cider is served directly from the tap. This style of service continues today in the Basque cider houses (sagardotegi). The force of the cider coming out of the barrel causes it to splash around the glass and foam up, mimicking the effects of carbonation. When Asturian cider made the leap from barrels to bottles as the most common form of serving, it was important to preserve this aerating and ‘opening’ action. So, the style of pouring the cider from a bottle held overhead developed to mimic the falling and splashing action of cider poured from a barrel.
The History of Cider Pouring
But how did cider make the transition from barrel to bottle? And why?
Once upon a time, all cider in Asturias was dispensed directly from the barrel in which it was fermented. This is still the case in the Basque Country. However, in the early 19th century, two huge changes reshaped Asturian society. A significant number of Asturians moved to Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico to seek their fortunes. Those who succeeded many times returned to Asturias as Indianos.
But building a colonial fortune is thirsty work, and a thirsty Asturian always reaches for sidra. While some immigrants built llagares in the ‘new Spain’, they were not immediately productive (apples taking some time to grow from seeds to trees, to fruit again). That meant Asturians needed huge amounts of cider shipped from Asturias to the colonies.
At the same time, industrialization had come to Asturias, and along with the workers, cider was moving from the farm to the city. Gone was the easy reach of the village cider barrel stored under the hórreo. Cider needed to be available to the worker in the new mining centers and factory towns. Asturians were exporting cider in bottles to other parts of Spain and even overseas before this period.[1]
In fact, the first factory in Asturias for making cider bottles opened in 1794. By the mid nineteenth century, people were primarily drinking cider from bottles in Asturias.[2] This process would accelerate throughout the twentieth century. Now we are in a period where seeing a cider barrel is a real rarity. It is the sort of thing the average person in Asturias might see once or twice a year.
Who Can Escanciar?
While it seems that properly pouring cider is the exclusive domain of the professional waiters, the truth is far more egalitarian. Indeed, it is something of a shibboleth for Asturians to be able to escanciar. Everyone encourages you to give it a try, and learning to escanciar properly is an important part of entering Asturian society as a transplant from elsewhere.
One who does escanciar is an escanciador. An escanciador can also be a mechanical device to help with pouring cider.
How To Pour Cider Properly
Cider pouring is an art form in Asturias. I delve into it in detail in the Ten Commandments of Cider Pouring.
- ↑ Caunedo y Cuenllas, José Antonio. “Del fomento de los plantíos, y modo de hacer la sidra en Asturias (extracto de una carta del cura de Turienzo de los Caballeros en la maragatería).” Semanario de agricultura y artes dirigido á los párrocos, vol. XIV, no. 340, July 1803, pp. 5–6.
- ↑ Hevia Llavona, Inaciu. La botella de Xixón : oríxenes y desendolcu hestóricu de la botella de sidra d’Asturies. pp 45. Trabe, 2013.