Magners was an Irish cider maker from Clonmel. In 1937 they formed a partnership with Bulmers of Hereford in England, (Bulmers was, and still is the largest cider producer in the world).

In 1949 the partnership was dissolved but Magners retained the right to use the Bulmers name for their cider in Ireland. They were bought by Cantrell & Cochrane who made Irish Bulmers Original cider into a hugely popular brand in the last few years. They cleverly sold it in pint bottles which could be poured into a pint glass full of ice.

The iced cider idea was so popular they thought they could sell it to other countries but they only had the right to call it Bulmers in Ireland. In the rest of the world the English Bulmers owned that name. So they decided to resurrect the old Magners name and introduced it to Australia, America and Britain under that name. It was initially hugely popular and raised the profile of cider as a drink with many new bottled ciders being produced off the back of its sales.

Obviously English Bulmers were not going to take this lying down and produced their own Bulmers Original cider with an almost identical bottle label.

To recap, we now have Bulmers Original cider made in Ireland and sold in Ireland but sold as Magners in the rest of the world and Bulmers Original cider made in England and sold as such to the rest of the world including Northern Ireland.

This leads to the bizarre situation I found myself in last summer where I was in a pub in Donegal selling Bulmers Original (Irish) and then took a 15 min ferry ride across the Foyle to drink in a pub selling Magners Original (the same cider but with a different name) and Bulmers Original (a completely different cider made in England.)

Confused! I was. But it didn’t make much difference as they are both fairly chemically and poor ciders.

Stick to Westons or the smaller producers like Gwatkins or Olivers if you can get them.

Zythophile Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 2:14 pm e
“Sinead” is just the Irish pronunciation of Janet, respelt as if it were an Irish word – quite ordinary, really, just like Magners, which is a triumph of marketing over reality – it looks great, poured into a pint glass with all that ice, buit despite using genuine cider varieties it tastes very ordinary. In the UK it did very well at first thanks to the gimmick effect, but sales are now diving, which is what happens with something that really offers little long-term satisfaction.