Perry: the amazing drink you’ve probably never tried

I delve into the rich culture of perry with a new book from Fortnum & Mason shortlisted author Adam Wells.

Every so often I do a sweep of my parent’s garage looking for rogue bottles that need drinking up. In the past among the vinegar we’ve had some nice surprises: a bottle of Ayala 1975 Extra Dry, still fizzy and actually quite tasty if a little oxidised, or a 1980 Chateau Septy Monbazillac which was like liquid marmalade. 

There was one, however, which I had been studiously avoiding because I was certain it would be knackered: a champagne-style bottle thick with dust which must have been there at least 20 years, probably brought back from a golf holiday in Normandy. Underneath the dust it said ‘Poire de Normandie, Boisgontier Pere et Fils’ and only 4% alcohol. I stood it up for a day, the bottom was thick with a black sediment. 

I got a hell of a surprise when I opened it because the cork shot out, still plenty of fizz here. The other surprise was that there was zero oxidation, the colour was a light gold with a flavour of peaches, almond and, yes, pears. I drank most of it myself before lunch.

So what was this amazing drink? Apart from a visit to Tom Oliver in Herefordshire, I think it’s about the only time I’ve ever had a high quality perry. Luckily to fill this enormous hole in my drinks knowledge there’s a new book out called Perry: A Drinker’s Guide by Adam Wells. Wells ploughs a lonely furrow - there’s not a lot of competition for Britain’s leading perry writer - so it’s been great to see him shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason awards this year and last. 

Perry is made from pears, just as cider is made from apples. And as with cider, there are special perry pears that aren’t much fun to eat but are delicious when fermented. Another similarity with cider is that perry had a heyday in the 17th century when it was viewed as an alternative to wine when England was at war with her usual source, France. There was a brief flowering before these aristocratic perries were swept away in a torrent of Port and sherry.

While cider survived and even thrived though not in such upmarket form, perry went into a steep decline. The trouble is that perry is awkward. The pears themselves are difficult, you might remember the quote from Eddie Izzard back when he was funny: “they're gorgeous little beasts, but they're ripe for half an hour, and you're never there”. Some of them rot from the inside, others have to be pressed within 48 hours of picking. Wells writes: “Once harvested, the challenges continue: varieties of pear that gum up presses with mulch; uneven fermentations and unfermentable sugars; a tendency to go cloudy or throw unsightly lumps of congealed sediment; susceptibility to every conceivable fault or bacterial infection.”

Then there’s the trees themselves, enormous ungainly things that take up a lot of space and they don’t crop reliably. So different from a tidy apple orchard. Wells writes: “perry pears often don’t offer a single piece of fruit in their first decade, The famous phrase in the Three Counties is ‘pears for your heirs’.” 

Perry in England used to mean Babycham, Lambrini (which I had no idea was a perry until I read this book) or Brother pear cider (nn case you were wondering, Wells explains that legally, “there is no difference whatsoever between perry and pear cider”) which you will have drunk by the bucketload if like me you spent the 00s at music festivals. 

Yet there is a quiet revival of this historic drink in the Three Counties of England and Wales, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire with producers like Tom Oliver and Little Pomona - I’ve got some recommendations at the end from Wells. Switzerland used to have a thriving perry scene but it was destroyed by some particularly brutal central planning in the 1960s. Outside Britain, the pear culture is strongest in Austria and Normandy. 

Until quite recently most of the pears planted in Normandy would have gone into Calvados or an illegal version of. Pear-based moonshine was huge in 19th and 20th century France. Wells tells the story of the ‘James Bond of smugglers’, Pierre Dubourg, who drove a modified Citroen DS that could "billow smoke, drop oil and nails, shine dazzling lights, change registration plates as it drove ... and carry 400l of illicit Calvados". Someone who really needs his own book and indeed film.

When the authorities clamped down on such escapades, there was suddenly an excess of perry pears with no home. Thousands of perry trees were grubbed up. Something had to be done. So the perry producers, being French, created a rigorously controlled appellation d’origine protegée (AOP) for their perry which came into force in 2002. Wells writes: “The required sugar ripeness of the pears is stipulated, as is the maximum yield per tree. And perries must be fermented using only wild yeasts, rather than pitching specific strains.” So French!

Today perry from Normandy, like the one I found in my parent’s garage, is some of the most reliable available. There is, however, a suspicion that French perry, though of a very high minimum standard, can be a little homogenous perhaps because most of it is made from one variety, plant de blanc, - just as white burgundy is made almost entirely from chardonnay.

In England and Wales regulations are much less stringent meaning that to be labelled ‘perry’, it only needs to be 35% pear juice, which could come from concentrate made from pears grown anywhere. The rest can be made up of water and sugar hence drinks like Koppaberg from Sweden which are more like pear-flavoured alcopops. 

But there’s also a much wider variety of pears used in Britain. The names are sheer poetry: Taynton Squash, Great Choke, Little Choke, Hellens Early, Judge Amphlett, Hendre Huffcap, Winnal’s Longdon, Brown Bess, and Butt. Happily in the last 5-10 years there’s been a revival in Britain not just in the Three Countries but over the border in Somerset and into Devon where one of my favourite cider producers, Find & Foster, makes a perry. There’s also some perrys made from dessert fruit in southeastern counties such as Kent. Both still and sparkling versions are made.

One of the biggest challenges from Wells’ perspective is that the vocabulary of perry is still being developed. While everyone knows sauvignon blanc smells of cat pee and gooseberries, who knows that Hendre Huffcap is redolent of “blossoms, honeydew melon, orchard fruits”?

Every chapter contains something surprising: “It is even possible to graft several varieties – even types of fruit – to a single tree. A horticulturist near Chichester in England has managed to graft 250 varieties of apple to just one tree, while another tree in Australia boasts plums, apricots, almonds, peaches and cherries.” This blew my mind!

Wells writes well too, soaringly, at times. There’s a beautiful appreciation of the landscape here: “there is an indescribable grandeur to these ancient landscapes; the solemn lines of field markers in Central Europe and majestic lone rangers studding the Three Counties.” At times I wished he could step outside the confines of a CAMRA Drinkers Guide and let his passions run wild a bit - one for the next book perhaps. He clearly takes his subject very seriously which leads to some inadvertent comedy: “For years I struggled to get a handle on my understanding of Butt’s flavour. I knew it was a big-bodied, brawny pear boasting wonderful juicy fruit…” Matron!

If you want to know about Britain's most exciting drink that you’ve probably never tasted, then you should read Wells’s book. I’m off to Normandy in a couple of weeks and I’m intending to drink nothing but perry and Calvados. If you’re keen to see what all the fuss is about, he’s very kindly recommended some bottles to try below. So in the words of Captain Barnacles from Octonauts, let’s do this thing!

Perry: A Drinker’s Guide by Adam Wells is published by CAMRA.

Some perries (or is it perrys?) to try:

Cwm Maddoc Betty Prosser 2022 (75cl £11)

Ross-on-Wye Flakey Bark 2020 (76cl £10)

 Little Pomona Brut de Poiré  (75cl £21)

Eric Bordelet poiré 2022  (75cl £15)

Finally, my local cider man Felix Nash at the Fine Cider Company, is offering a mixed case of six perrys including some from Tom Oliver, Ross-on-Wye and Find & Foster for £64.