Fire Cider is among the most popular products at Port Plums! Read on to learn about all this spicy, tangy tonic has to offer.
This information comes from the Fire Cider website: https://firecider.com/
What is Fire Cider?
Fire Cider is a spicy, sweet, and tangy apple cider vinegar (ACV) tonic infused with roots, fruits, and spices. Health tonics restore, stimulate, or invigorate the body.
To the base of certified organic apple cider vinegar, we've added whole, raw, certified organic oranges, lemons, onions, ginger, horseradish, habañero pepper, garlic, and turmeric. Everything you’d find in a grocery store!
These ingredients have immunity-boosting, antibacterial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties. They also have the potential to boost metabolism and energy, ease sinus congestion, lower blood sugar, curb cravings, and aid digestion. It’s also certified organic and gluten-free!
How to take it:
We like to drink ½ to 1 tablespoon straight up every day to keep us hale, hearty, and energized.
Fire Cider is just as tasty when mixed with seltzer, fruit juice, or tea. Many of our customers make a delicious salad dressing with our tonic, olive or coconut oil, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and herbs. Fire Cider is also great on cooked greens, and as a marinade for meat, seafood, and tempeh. Add some to your bone broth for a nutritional boost – the vinegar will help pull nutrients out of the roasted bones!
How to store it:
Fire Cider’s main ingredients are apple cider vinegar and honey, two of nature’s greatest preservatives. This means our tonics are shelf stable and don’t need to be refrigerated. We keep our bottle tightly capped in a cool, dry, easy-to-reach spot in the kitchen.
Ingredient Breakdown:
APPLE CIDER VINEGAR
Ancient apples were often too small or bitter to eat raw, but when pressed, their juices could be fermented into hard cider. Today, the same processes are still used. Apples are pressed, yeast and bacteria are added, and the alcoholic fermentation process begins where the sugars are converted to alcohol.
Then a second fermentation process happens. An acetic acid-forming bacteria is introduced and the alcohol transforms into vinegar. Acetic and malic acid are responsible for the recognizable sour taste of vinegar. Never heat-treated or filtered, our apple cider vinegar base is raw and living, still containing the living Acetobacter colonies.
- Contains the Mother - a living colony comprised of strands of proteins, beneficial enzymes, and friendly bacteria
- High in acetic acid
RAW HONEY
With powerful antioxidant and antibacterial properties, our raw honey is organic, Fair Trade-certified and collected in regions using ancient, sustainable practices that help to support the local farmers and their communities.
Original Blend Fire Cider uses a multi-floral honey from the Calakmul rainforests of the Yucatan in Mexico. The bees get to live their lives in and amongst ancient Mayan ruins protected from logging and deforestation threats.
Honey-Free Fire Cider does not contain this ingredient
HABANERO
Originating in the Amazon, habanero peppers and been in use for over 8,000 years. They are a mainstay in many of the dishes of the Yucatan and have been found at archeological sites spreading throughout South and Central America, from Peru to Mexico. They bring the heat and a surprising, underlying citrus flavor that works so well with the oranges and lemons in our recipe.
- Capsaicin acts as a digestive aid
- Capsaicin is a powerfully alkaline phytochemical
ORANGE
Oranges originated in China and arrived with traders to the Mediterranean around the year 1500. They have become the most cultivated fruit tree in the world! The oranges we know and love today are the result of cross-breeding a pomelo and a mandarin, and they make up about 70% of the citrus grown worldwide. The entire fruit (peel, pith and juice!) is used in our recipe for maximum benefit. It adds a bright, unexpected sweetness.
- Pith and peel are full of phytonutrients
- Loaded with over 60 flavonoids
TURMERIC
A staple in the Ayurvedic and Chinese medicinal traditions and many Asian cuisines, turmeric has also been used as a fabric and food dye for hundreds of years. It’s long been known for its anti-inflammatory benefits. Turmeric brings a pungent bitterness with a warm, black pepper-like flavor and earthy, mustard-like aroma, as well as a vibrant color to our recipe.
- Excellent source of vitamin B6 and zinc
- Full of powerful curcumin
GINGER
Ginger was one of the first spices exported from Asia. This hot and fragrant rhizome was traveling around the islands of the Pacific as Europe was first being settled. Fresh ginger, redolent with natural oils like gingerol, is added to our recipe, skin and all. Ginger also has a warming effect on the body, so it’s not just the burn of the habaneros raising your temperature.
- Packed with vitamins and nutrients, like: iron, vitamin C, potassium, vitamin B6, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, folate, niacin, riboflavin, gingerols, beta-carotene, capsaicin, caffeic acid, curcumin and salicylate
- Powerful digestive aid
LEMON
Introduced to Italy 2,000 years ago from its origin in northeast India, the lemon may be the most unlikely of popular fruits. .It’s sour and bitter, and is not a fruit often enjoyed on its own, but it brings so much flavor to a culinary party. The lemon is another whole fruit in our recipe. From the oil in the zest to the tangeretin in the peel, every part is here for the benefit it brings to the flavor party. That zing ain’t just from the vinegar!
- High in vitamin C, which is necessary to produce collagen
- Vitamin C maximizes the body's ability to absorb iron
BLACK PEPPER
Those little kernels we love to grind onto our food are actually the dried fruits from a flowering vine native to Southwestern India. Green peppercorns are the fruit before it ripens, and white peppercorns are the fruit's seeds. Black pepper is the world’s most traded spice. A little goes a long way! A very small amount of whole peppercorns steep in our recipe to support the benefits of turmeric and for the added flavor.
- The piperine in black pepper makes the curcumin in turmeric more bioavailable to your body
- Rich in vitamins and minerals
GARLIC
Garlic is a fundamental flavor component in many of the world’s best-known cuisines, and the plant is almost 100% edible. Crushed garlic is a natural adhesive, so in a pinch it can be used as a temporary glue for glass or paper! Raw and whole, skin and all, the garlic in our recipe adds a pungent bite and helps support the bold notes of the horseradish in balancing out the flavor.
- Full of powerfully beneficial allicin
- Packed with potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, selenium, beta-carotene
HORSERADISH
Horseradish is revered for its strong smell and bitterly pleasant flavor. It has been cultivated as far back as ancient Greece, where its worth was equivalent to gold. There are records of George Washington having grown it at Mt. Vernon, as it was a well-known condiment served with meat in European cultures. Fresh horseradish helps to balance out many of the sweet components of our recipe and adds an earthy undertone.
- The isothiocyanate compound is a powerful nasal decongestant
- Excellent source of vitamin C and folate
ONION
Onions were a favorite crop in ancient Rome, and evidence of onion gardens has been uncovered at Pompeii. Onions have been cultivated the world over, from China to the Americas, for more than 7,000 years. Sharp, spicy, and pungent, onions are nutrient dense and full of organosulfur compounds, folate, and vitamin C. If your eyes are stinging just a bit after your morning shot, you can bet it was the onions as much as the habaneros.
- Great source of quercetin
- The phytochemicals present in onions act as stimulants for vitamin C
