Beverage

Perry

Perry is fermented juice of pears—ideally the tannic, often inedible perry pears of the Three Counties and parts of Normandy and Anjou, not a Conference or Comice tipped into a cider vat. A true perry can be as structured as a light white wine: floral, slightly smoky, with a grip that dessert-pear "pear cider" never has. Carbonation ranges from still and fragile to a fine sparkle. It is not cider with pear flavouring, and it is not pear juice. Serve it colder than a farmhouse cider and treat it gently in the pan—long reduction turns the perfume into boiled sweets. A splash in a pork or game sauce works if the perry is dry and tannic. Sweet commercial pear cider belongs in a glass, not a jus. Orchard-named bottles (Barland, Blakeney Red, Yellow Huffcap) are the ones worth cooking or cellaring.