Hard cider sooner or later declined with industrialization almost
everywhere.  In many countries, it was much later than in the US.  For
instance, fermented cider consumption dropped by 73% between 1950
and 1975 in Switzerland, while overall alcohol consumption was rising
by 30% (p. 71 in E Single, P Morgan and J de Lint, eds., Alcohol, Society,
and the State: 2. The Social History of Control Policy in Seven Countries,
Toronto: Addiction Research Foundation, 1981.)  I think in France, too,
cider almost disappeared as a commercial product in the postwar era.  I
remember an official of the Societe des Alcools (provincial monopoly
stores) in Quebec telling me they only carried cider as a sop to the
farming vote -- noone bought it anymore.  Even in Britain, I think cider's
role is diminished from what it was even in the 1930s.
   Changing tastes in alcoholic beverages are a fascinating and
underresearched topic.  Jessica Warner ([log in to unmask]) has recently
written about British xenophobia and the succession of beverages
derogated by Britons as "foreign".   Pekka Sulkunen has applied an
analysis in the Bourdieu tradition to the succession of beverages in
France -- see a couple of articles in english in the British Journal of
addiction, and his "a la recherche de la modernite: boissons et buveurs
en France aujourd'hui: interpretation par un etranger.  Helsinki: Social
Research Institute for Alcohol Studies, Report No. 178, 1988.
   Temperance may indeed have been an instrument in the decline of
cider in the US, but the story also has other dimensions.
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