Cider: How I made my own pear cider: it’s called Fred’s Perry

When we moved into the new house, we felt lucky to have a pear tree in our garden. How grown up, we thought. Then September came and the tree started raining fruit. Masses of fruit. Our green and pleasant lawn transformed into a carpet of greeny-yellowy-brown pears, which squelched gruesomely underfoot. I invited my children and nephews to help, offering them 5p for every pear they picked up. Big mistake. The boys quickly realised they were on to a winner and I had to fork out about £25.

The worst part, though, was not knowing what to do with this unwanted harvest, which rotted quickly and attracted thousands upon thousands of fruit flies, which then began to colonise the kitchen. We ended up loading great sackfuls of the mangy fruit into the car and driving them to the dump. Yet the pears kept falling.

I told The Spectator’s Food and Drink editor Lara Prendergast about this dilemma. Lara suggested that I make perry, which is pear cider, in case you didn’t know (I didn’t). Great, I said, not thinking the idea would go much further. I mean I like drinking cider, much too much, but I had always thought home-brewing it was for mentally ill people in the West Country. Lara persisted, however, and emailed the good people at Love Brewing, who sent over a cider-making kit. Three large boxes duly appeared, containing various metal objects, mysterious powders, a bucket, a siphon, about 50 empty plastic bottles, a thermometer and something called a hydrometer. It all looked disturbingly complicated and scientific.