Waitrose Low Alcohol Cider

If you're finding it hard to give up booze for the month you might want to snap up a bottle or two of Waitrose's low alcohol cider which is only 1% ABV.

Now I'm not saying it's the best-tasting cider ever - it's a little too thin and too sweet, for my palate at least* - but it does taste recognisably like cider in a way that apple juice doesn't and if you were drinking it with roast pork, a chicken casserole or even a nice hunk of cheddar it would rub along fine. It's actually made in Herefordshire in old oak vats so I'm guessing it probably comes from Weston's.

The price is pretty attractive too. It only costs £1.15 a 500ml bottle - online at any rate. I somehow ended up paying £1.21 for my bottle in store, maybe because it's classified as a 'Little Waitrose'. Not a huge outlay anyway.

* However my neighbour who just popped in tried it and said 'really nice'. So there you go. I should also have pointed it's 180 calories a glass so it's not exactly a low calorie option - though not much more than a large glass of shiraz.

Sampford Courtenay elderflower cider

No wine of the week this week because there's a great cider deal to highlight - 25% off all ciders at Waitrose.

That brings the delicious Sampford Courtenay Elderflower cider I tasted earlier this year down to a very affordable £3.74 a full sized bottle instead of £4.99. I'm not normally mad about flavoured ciders but this is a natural product made from apples picked on the Sampford Courtenay estate in Devon and free from artificial flavours, colours and sweeteners and elderflowers picked and steeped in their own spring water. Or so the blurb says and I've no reason to disbelieve it. Although this is a quintessentially summery drink I'd still be happy to drink it for the next month or so (I suspect Waitrose was banking on a hotter summer, hence the promotion). It's available in 204 branches and also from North Coast Wine.

Other good deals would be Waitrose's own range (particularly the perry) which is always good value and the excellent Orchard Pig which are made on our doorstep here in Bristol - possibly only available in selected West Country stores.

Now Credit Crunch Drinking posts will appear on this blog too

I've come to the conclusion I have too many blogs. Five, at the current count which is ridiculous.

The logical step is to drop Credit Crunch Drinking as a separate blog and incorporate it here. Regular readers will remember I did this once before then rather weakly resuscitated it.

I should have stuck to the original decision. After all if you're interested in keeping down the cost of your food shopping, chances are the same applies to wine and other drinks. And if you're a fan of the Credit Crunch Drinking blog you may appreciate a few frugal recipes too.

So win/win, I hope. There will continue to be posts like this under £6 selection of bargain buys from M & S which ends on September 4th and this well-priced cider from the Co-op. Let me know if there are any drinks you'd particularly like me to cover.

And now for frugal drinking!

I've been thinking for a while of starting a frugal drinking blog including beer, cider and other drinks as well as wine. It's actually the other part of my working life (I used to write a regular column for the Daily Mail!) but it never seemed to quite fit in with this blog.

It struck me though that it would be pretty useful, particularly in the current economic climate. We like to drink well but we don't spend a lot of money on doing so. I happen to think that drinks like beer and cider are underrated and that there are a lot of bargains out there that people don't know about or are unsure whether it's OK to buy because they don't know that much about wine.

So I've kicked it off, it's called Credit Crunch Drinking and you can find it here!

I hope you enjoy it. Do write and let me know how you get on if you follow my suggestions and share any tips or brilliant special offers you've spotted. (If you feel self-conscious about asking questions about wine, as I know many people do, you can always email me at fibeckett@live.com)