Wine from Napa Valley convinced the world that the U.S. was a wine country. But before any of this, when European settlers landed on our eastern shores, before grapes and grains were farmed with fervor, there were apples. And like grapes and grains, apples have sugar, an essential component of fermentation. Apples were fermented in the U.S. centuries ahead of wine or beer, which is why hard cider is fundamentally and historically - the real American drink.