Mort

19

Scumble is the Discworld equivalent of scrumpy, a drink probably unknown to most non-UK readers. It’s a (very) strong cider, originating from the West country, Somerset farmhouses in particular.

On the subject of scrumpy, Terry writes:

"I can speak with authority, having lived a short walking—to get there, at least, although it seemed to take longer coming back—distance from a real cider house.

1) You are unlikely to buy scrumpy anywhere but from a farm or a pub in a cider area.

2) It won’t fizz. It slumps in the glass, and is a grey-orange colour.

3) The very best scrumpy is (or at least, was) made on farms where a lot of the metalwork around the press was lead; the acid apple juice on the lead gave the resultant drink a kick which lasted for the rest of your life.

4) While a lot of the stories about stuff being put in ‘to give it body’ are probably apocryphal, apparently it wasn’t uncommon to put a piece of beef in the stuff to give it ‘strength’.

5) I certainly recall a case of a female tourist having to have an ambulance called out after two pints of scrumpy.

6) We used to drink almost a pint, topped off with half an inch of lemonade; this was known as ‘cider and gas’ and was popular in our part of the Mendips. Two pints was the max. I recall that as we went back across the fields someone who is now a professor of medieval history fell down a disused mineshaft and still carried on singing.”