Cider has been around for at least 5,000 years, but it’s impossible to tell who used it first as a drink or cooking ingredient. The fun myth is that Julius Caesar came upon Britons who were brewing hard cider and brought it back to Rome, although there’s no real evidence.
Consumed the world over, cider is just concentrated juice from apples — but where “apple juice” is strained and refined with added ingredients, cider keeps the pulp with very little processing.
Just to clear up some terms, there’s apple cider (non-alcoholic) and hard cider (alcoholic). But you might also find “dry cider,” “cysers” (a seltzer-like drink), cider slushies, and many more variations depending on region…