The Fatigue Edit with Felix Nash of Fine Cider
By Drake's
2026년 1월 28일
Felix Nash has, over the last four years, slowly been repairing an eighteen meter long, two masted, yacht in Faversham, Kent. When we head down to visit him at the shipyard it’s docked in, he’s part way through painting some of the exterior, and building some new cabinets inside. It’ll be ready soon, and he’s eager to head out on some adventures, although Felix is quick to say that a boat is never really finished.
“Most of the cider in the country, in reality, is crap. At least in comparison to what it can be.”
Felix is a good host, guiding us through the community of the shipyard, its boat builders and sail makers and its solitary pub. His dog, Laurie, a wispy scruff of Bedlington Whippet, running excitedly under boats propped up on the shore, waiting for summer.
“The very thing that makes Champagne sparkling has its origins in the method of cider making here in the early 1600s. Napoleon even referred to perry as English Champagne.”
Ten years ago Felix started Fine Cider, and he humbly refers to what he does as simply being a “cider merchant”, but he could also be described as the central hub of a boom in cider appreciation in England. When he started the company he had no experience in the drinks business. He was working in the arts, and had been hosting supper clubs in a warehouse space he had just off Hackney Road with his brother. He had been doing some DIY work on a relative’s cottage in Herefordshire when, after finishing a hard day’s work, and fancying something to drink, picked up a bottle of cider from a wine shop that tasted like a revelation.
“Most of the cider in the country, in reality, is crap. At least in comparison to what it can be,” Felix recalls. Cider in the UK only has to be 35% apple concentrate, the apples can come from anywhere on earth and can be made quickly with no sense of seasonality or terroir. Felix calls fine cider “the native wine of England”, and extols its history, dating back further than Champagne. “The very thing that makes Champagne sparkling has its origins in the method of cider making here in the early 1600s,” he says. “Napoleon even referred to perry as English Champagne.”
Part of Felix’s work at Fine Cider, which stocks interesting bottles for restaurants and also has a shop that is open at weekends, in London Fields, is also to help promote and market the cider industry generally, including the environmental credentials of good orchards — which he says, with all their biodiversity, are “halfway to rewilding. The way fine cider tends to be made is often better and more environmentally friendly than biodynamic wine.”
The business grew “through a decade of stress and testing, trying to figure out the best way to share such a deep rabbit hole of fascination with others; it was especially a challenge with a public who knows cider as Bulmers, Magners, or Scrumpy, but who has no idea what they are missing out on. Initially, the whole idea was to connect a lot of amazing, pioneering makers, folks of heart and soul, with the market of London, and other cities, and restaurants in particular.”
“I love visiting an orchard in mid spring, when the blossoms begin to burst, and you can taste the first of the new season's cider straight from the barrel.”
Fine cider has as many styles and variations as wine, a history as rich and fascinating. “It's a small, warm, interconnected world,” Felix says of the community, and one of the best parts of the job is visiting the many cider and perry makers across the country. “Especially at certain times of year, like in mid spring, when the blossoms begin to burst, and you can taste the first of the new season's cider from the barrel.”
But it’s also a testament to the rise of fine cider that many of the makers that Felix works intimately with now, hadn’t even started producing when he launched a decade ago. “I find it hard to keep up with all of the new makers, the amazing bottles,” Felix says. “Some are new and still honing their craft, but it's come so incredibly far, so quietly, in just a decade.”
And it's a change that's happening all over the world, not just in the historic cider making regions of the UK and northern France, but also Japan and Scandinavia, from Scotland to the Baltic, Kazakhstan to Australia. “Pick a temperate zone, more northerly in the north, or more southerly in the south, than grapes usually grow, and I can pretty much guarantee you someone there will have recently started making cider,” he says.
Our tour of the boatyard over, and the wind changing, blowing in cold from the North Sea, we retire to the cabin of the boat, light the fire, and Felix pulls out a few bottles of cider for us to try. The first is by Tom Oliver, “a legend of cider making” and one of fine cider’s pioneers, who has been working for over two decades, and is regarded as one of the best makers on the planet. Another is by Find & Foster, “who restore old abandoned orchards in Devon, and showcase the best in environmental consideration, can somehow intersect with some of the most exquisitely complex, nuanced, and delicious bottles on the planet.” The third is a bottle of pommeau, made from a blend of unfermented apple juice and Calvados, made to be enjoyed much like any digestif, but with a depth of flavour unlike an eau de vie.
Next up for Felix is the London Cider Salon at the Tate Modern, in May, where he’s bringing together some of the best makers from across the UK and around the world. “There are few better chances to explore just how good cider can be, and it just so happens to be the makers themselves who will pour it into your glass, tell you about it as you taste.”
