Pair these award-winning ciders and alcoholic ginger beers with our yummy recipes

Our Top-30 features three fruit-driven ciders (including a great zero-percenter) as well as a traditional dry cider from Paynters.

All ciders are great food friends because of their underlying acidity which does the same job as wine when cutting through food.

Let’s talk lush and sweet first: Morningcider Cherry Bomb and Mount Brewing’s Tart Rhubarb are both incredibly versatile drinks. You could have them as aperitifs where they’d complement cheese and crackers or an antipasto board. Or at the other end of the night, they are almost like dessert wines and can work especially well with chocolate or fruit crumbles.

The Zeffer Alcoholic Gingerbeer is a real zinger — with ginger, chilli and peppery-minty kawakawa. The spice and heat character lends itself to Asian-style noodles such as pad Thai as well as nasi goreng.

And Zeffer have chimed in with a delightful 0% passionfruit-spiked cider that’s perfect for guilt-free lunches such as sushi, fresh spring rolls, or a Caesar Salad.

Paynters The Pilgrim is a super-dry cider with a deep golden colour and rich buttery texture. It’s structured, to some degree like a low-alcohol chardonnay so match it with anything a chardonnay would enjoy — grilled salmon, creamy pasta, risotto.