White Lightning

Brewed by Bulmers Cider (S&N, Heineken)
Style: Cider
Hereford, England

Can. Virtually no colour, looks like lemonade. Very little apple flavour, mostly chemicals. Another Tramps special although I noticed underage drinkers buying it too. Awful

Like many "industrial ciders" this is very pale and anaemic. Aromas are sour "almost apples" with chemicals. Flavours are sweet iniitially followed by chemicals and liver failure. One for the massochist. I feel sick. Diamond White used to be trendy but this is has always been for alcoholics.

Oh please pinch me so I can wake up!!!
It looks like someone has urinated into a filled water dispenser, though the bubbles that lift rapidly from the sides of the glass give it a post-mix flare. It smells mousy, hairy, a touch too much walnut puree and timber varnish. It tastes of unexcitement. Brashly carbonated, biting, light bodied, fizzy soda water with very little apple yet I clung on just hoping some juicy succulence might peek its welcome head out. Its husky, the alcohol, not hot, but just harsh. The clean spirit aftershock is bewildering. It is vinous and astringent on the swallow, crisp and carbonic, really bites in, but the alcohol is not shy at all. It leaves a mess on the palate, or is that your palate in a mess. This isn’t cider. It’s alcohol for football hooligans too young and daft, too bloody stupid but preyed upon by products like this. Nothing truly nasty, I survived a pint, but this is just evil. (50cL can, 31/01/08, The Beer Store Morley)

smells absolutly foul, tastes just as bad and has a damned unpleasant metallic quality, makes it into the cider category on a technicality i think, since it does have a squirt of apple flavouring somewhere. But at £2 for 2 litres, it does posses a certain ’face-mashery’ that more expensive brews lack when you only have a tenner.

Tried this a few weeks ago( an experiment you understand!) I didn’t know then that I could also rate ciders, well done! they are a sadly under-rated drink. After tasting this I can understand that " under-rating", this is truly awful, I dont think any apples have been involved in the production of this muck..perhaps the apple buyer lost his glasses and bought a job lot of onions instead..that would explain the totally unapple-like aroma/colour/flavour. Trading standards should be told that this is being sold as a "cider", ’cos it most certainly aint.

Plastic 2 Liter Bottle. Mildly intimidating. Slight sour apple aroma, somewhat skunky. Flavor is sour at the open and overly sugary in the finish. The sugar content kind of hurts my stomach. Dangerously high abv.

Can (500ml). Poured a super clear watery colour with a tinge of greenish yellow and a fizzy white head which was full diminishing. Aroma was of vinegar, sulfur, hints of apple and an odd eggy smell in the back, almost like someone let one go! Taste was insanely sweet with more sugar than apple present and some unwelcome acidic/sulfury notes. This one hid its alcohol volume well, but other than that it was a disaster.

I bought this one often when I lived in Edinburgh. I know it is not something to be proud of, Scrumpy Jack is better, just didnt know it then.