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Cheeky Rascal steals win at the Australian Cider Awards

Boutique cider house Rebello has taken out best in class in the inaugural ‘cider with fruit’ category of this year’s Australian Cider Awards with its ‘Passionfruit Pink Lady’.

Made with Victorian grown pink lady apples and real passionfruit, Passionfruit Pink Lady was created as a limited edition range to the Cheeky Rascal Cider family, but proved was so popular, it’s now part of the core range.

As with all of Cheeky Rascal Ciders it’s made using 100% real fresh fruit, without concentrates and flavourings by third generation entrepreneurs of the Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm, Matt and Ruth Gallace.

There were 155 entries across 18 classes in the annual awards, but this was the first time a category was created for cider or perry with real fruit.

Judges described it as a “well-made, clean, bright, crisp cider with grippy passionfruit character”.

Cider Australia President Sam Reid says the addition of the new class for ciders, made with the addition of natural fruits other than apple and pear, was to ensure the awards reflect the diversity of cider styles available to and enjoyed by Australian consumers.

"Our goal is to drive and reward innovation in cider making, and it's great to be seeing some solid results in these new classes."

Rebello CEO Ruth Gallace says it’s humbling to take out the inaugural award at what is the largest cider awards in the country.

“Having a category to recognise the work which goes into blending real fruit with cider is not only validation for cider makers like ourselves who have invested heavily for many years to produce a quality real fruit cider alternative, but it also provides credibility and clarity for the customer.”

Passionfruit Pink Lady was created on the back of requests by Cheeky Rascal’s loyal followers who it canvassed asking them to identify fruits they’d like to see blended with cider.

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