The other night I hit a little personal milestone. The 500th new cider or perry I’ve tasted in 2019. It wasn’t something I’d planned from the start of the year, but as the tastings and events and cidery visits snowballed it became a little, dimly-distant hare that I decided to chase. Finding myself in the aftermath of June’s Cider Salon on somewhere around the 300 mark it finally began to crystallise as an achievable target. And on Saturday night I opened, tasted and recorded number 500. As you’d expect, once I found myself tootling past 450 or so, a little time was spent idly pondering the potential identity of the 500th new taste. Scrattings was spooled; special bottles in the collection were set aside. I had in mind something suitably auspicious and celebratory; a pour from the slightly hazy and roughly-defined “fine” end of the ledger. Perhaps something champagne-method from Eve’s or Find & Foster. Or – we’re well into Christmas, after all – the unctuous decadence of a mouthcoating Eden, Brännland or Saragnat ice cider. I flirted with the …