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The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines "sidra" as "fermented apple juice" and derives it from the Latin "sicera = a fermented beverage", originally from the Hebrew. The Hebrew word "shekhar" (shin-khaf-resh --- kh as in Scots "loch") is rendered into English as "strong drink" by both the AV and the NEB. Proverbs 20.1: "Letz ha-yayin, ve-homeh shekhar" : "wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging" (AV), "wine is an insolent fellow, and strong drink makes an uproar" (NEB). The Vulgate (405 C.E.) says "luxuriosa res vinum et tumultuosa ebrietas" (no mention of "sicera"). i always used to think of "strong drink" as distilled spirits --- but it seems much more likely that "shekhar" refers simply to any fermented beverage not made from grapes. These have been around since before the beginning of history (special case of Murphy's Law --- anything that can be fermented --- will be fermented). Distilled spirits were probably not known West of the Indus at the time the Book of Proverbs was written (see E. Britannica).
In Chile, where I spent my deformative years, fermented grape juice is known as "chicha", and I thought on reading this thread that there might be some connection with "cider" and "sicera" --- but it appears the word "chicha" is used in many parts of Latin America for a variety of fermented drinks, and the RAE derives it from "chichab", a Panamanian Indian word for maize.

P.S. Thank you again, jgorman64, for that Blue Letter Bible site. It's tremendous.

I agree --- "strong drink" is certainly not a fitting title for some of the auspice that is marketed as "beer" in many parts of the world. In fact, for many of these brews, the appellation "drink" could be considered a gross exaggeration. Cider, now --- I'm not so sure. I believe that in S.W. England (Devonshire and Somerset) the brewing of cider is an ancient and venerated craft, and there may be some pretty potent stuff lurking there, perhaps not in full view of the exciseman. One would have to inquire cautiously of the locals (ditto for parts of France). In British Columbia I have drunk a very palatable cider, made from apples grown in the Okanagan, with a stated alcohol content of 7% (oh how easily, how joyfully it goes down!). There's no reason why an enterprising "off-the-record" brewer, untrammelled by official regulations, shouldn't be able to do a lot better than seven per cent.

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cider seems to have more intoxicating effect than beer or ale of the same alcohol content

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I suspect this may be because of consumer unawareness. Cider doesn't taste all that alcoholic --- people who don't know what it is, tend to knock it back as though it were lemonade, and find themselves laid out before they ever realize what hit them. A young woman friend of mine in Vancouver, who has a penchant for cider, told me that many of her male friends deride it as an unmanly drink, fit only for girls --- despite the fact that it contains about 50% more ethanol than most of the vile factory-brewed bottled beer they prefer to swill.

Quote (Dr. Techie): "I suppose the connection is through the idea of fallen apples that are wrinkled"

I suspecks you ain't never been a farm boy, Doc. NOT fallen apples. Fallen apples are rarely, if ever, wrinkled. They rot very rapidly on the ground, or when stored at ambient temperature (even British ambient temperature) in contact with each other (hence the old saw about one rotten apple in a barrel). Moisture loss through the skin of an apple, on the other hand, is a slow business --- it can take weeks for wrinkles to appear. The apples most likely to be appreciably wrinkled, enough to qualify as "scrump" (see ElizaD's post no.4757, above), would be those which had been carefully stored, on special racks designed to keep them from touching each other, and left for a considerable time, to be eaten out of season --- or made into "scrumpy", which would, as you rightly point out, have a potentially higher potency than cider made from fresh apples (at this point I'm already drooling). I doubt if one would see many such racks in these days of cold storage --- but they certainly did exist (signed --- former farm boy and apple picker).

Fallen apples are rarely, if ever stolen, either. Any youngster with enough piratical enterprise to go scrumping apples would have the gumption to shin up the tree and get the good ones --- leaving the windfalls for those of fainter heart, who would ask Farmer Jenks' (Jenks's? I prefer the single "s") permission to gather them (permission which would probably be given, since most of the windfalls would be either half-rotten, or maggoty, or both, and would thus give Farmer J. a chance to feel generous at no cost to himself). (signed --- former scrumper. Arthritis made me honest)

This has been a most interesting thread, even though the connection between "scrumpy" and scrumping remains to me, at least, unclear, though it seems obvious there is one. i loved ElizaD's link on the vocabulary of cider making (only sorry i couldn't open any of the other cideruk links). The "circular stone miil pulled round by a pony", by the way, is called in English an "edge runner" (German "kollergang"). Such mills have been used around the Mediterranean for thousands of years, mostly in the production of olive oil. They were sometimes used in Europe up till the 17th century, in the preparation of fibres for papermaking.