When I pop open a bottle of hard cider, I'm suddenly back in the orchard, the scent is rich with the musty notes of fallen apples and damp leaves and it tastes like autumn itself. I'm mad for hard cider, especially our local brews, and am thrilled that this old drink is being rediscovered to sip and cook with, too.

There's really nothing new about hard cider. Until the late 1800s, it was preferred over beer and consumed like water, which often carried unsafe bacteria. Its alcohol content, ranging from 2 to 8 percent, is much lower than wine or beer, so kids drank it, too, as milk was reserved for making butter and cheese. Most families pressed and brewed their own cider from back-yard trees.

Good hard cider relies on a range of different apples, some sweet, but most are tart and high in tannins, the component that gives dry wine its throat-catching quality. The resurgence of ciders has inspired an interest in heritage and wild apples that are so astringent that they are known as "spitters," impossible to swallow. It's those bittersweet, bittersharp apples that, when blended with their sweet cousins, give the best cider balance. And it's this fine, nose-tingling, lip-smacking balance that makes hard cider an especially food-friendly drink.

Effervescent and refreshing, hard cider is great with all sorts of cheese, especially gooey rich Brie and Camembert, sharp aged Cheddar, and crumbly Roquefort or blue. For spicy dishes — Asian stir-fries and Indian curries — hard cider is a better choice than wine. Smoky barbecue and the warm spices of South and Central America make a great pairing, too. In fact, hard cider is an easy choice for grilled brats and burgers, roast chicken, and pork chops.

Sweet cider is pasteurized to stop the fermentation process, while hard cider is actually apple juice allowed to mature. Some cider makers control the process by introducing the same yeasts used to transform grapes into champagne or grain into beer. Other brewers allow the naturally occurring wild yeasts to transform the beverage by leaving the cider alone.

Cider styles are hard to pin down because it's always been a local drink based on the apples available for local tastes. The French style of cider, or "cidra," uses sweeter apples and is effervescent. British cider is typically very dry and sharper, thanks to a quantity of bitter crabapples. Traditional American ciders rely on wild yeast and are conditioned in wooden casks. Some brewers use bourbon or whiskey barrels to infuse their cider with more spirit. But in short, a good cider should have a light body, clear bright pale yellow color, be slightly astringent (dry) and a just a tad sweet. The fun is in tasting the range of possibilities and finding one you like to drink, and cook with, too.

Just as wine and beer romance any number of dishes, hard and sweet cider add another dimension to soups, stews, roasts and desserts. Pop open a cider and pour a little into the pot and the rest into a glass for yourself.

Beth Dooley is the author of "Minnesota's Bounty" and "The Northern Heartland Kitchen."