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Cider is the new frontier for adult drinks, with small-batch producers making boutique concoctions that run the gamut from fruity to dry. It's also something you can make at home, just

like home-brewed beer, but maybe even easier. When Dale Penrose was 19 and away to college, he realized that if he wanted to drink alcohol, he was going to have to get creative. So he went

to the store for a gallon of apple juice, added some yeast and let it sit. Soon enough, he had hard cider. "It was pretty tasty,” says Penrose, 60, who has since honed his craft and

earned a wall of trophies for his efforts. “My friends and I would drink it as fast as we were brewing it.” THE ABCS OF CIDER BREWING Like the craft beer industry, which has exploded in

recent decades, hard cider is having a similar moment. The American Cider Association reports that consumers ages 23 to 40 and 53 to 71 drink more cider than other demographics. More than 13

million cases of hard cider are being sold by retailers annually, racking up $516 million in sales. Home brewers are experimenting with their own hard cider versions, tweaking flavors,

carbonation levels and alcohol content, and experimenting with pasteurization. The basic process shouldn't scare anyone off. Alex Lewin, 51, of the San Francisco Bay Area, started

making hard cider in college and wanted to demystify the process. His short Instagram video showing how to make hard cider in one minute or less has racked up more than 1,700 views. But

first, a little vocabulary: In the U.S., there's apple juice, which is the bright, clear juice sold in stores. And then there's apple cider, the unfiltered, browner version found

at fall farmers markets, health food stores and in some grocery stores. Either of those can be fermented and turned into hard cider. At its core (get it?), the process of turning juice into

cider is simple, with limited potential for disaster. The worst-case scenario is that it tastes bad or ends up as vinegar.