Cider is one of Equestria's if not its single most popular drink, enjoyed by ponies from all over. And it turns out that none other then Omnipotence and Eclipsa were the ones who first created Cider! Although the way they did it was a little...unorthodox.
How Cider Was Invented
Omnipotence: Greetings my friends! I am Omnipotence, Your benevolent and passionate Queen of The Alicorn Empire. The pleasure is all mine.
Eclipsa: And I'm Eclipsa! Your Seductive Dark Matron Of The Eternal Night!! And also the sexiest one ;)
Omnipotence: Y-Yes, AND my dear sister. You left that part out.
Eclipsa: That too.
Omnipotence: Anyway, I'm certainly not one to deny that I've....had my moments, where I was less then regal, to my regret. Everyone has moments where they don't act as they normally do, even us.
Eclipsa: I'm never regal, and I never regret. I just have fun, and say screw the consequences. Screw the consequences, Omni!
Omnipotence: Thank you for that, dear sister. But, it was a moment such as this, that lead to me and Eclipsa creating Cider, of which all of the empire now enjoys. As such we saw it only right that we record the process of how we did it. So lets begin.
Eclipsa: We were camping out in Everfree Forest, we had brought some apple juice, I mixed it with alcohol that I had brought from my kingdom, it made cider, and we both got shitfaced after trying it.
Omnipotence: Eclipsa! We can't possibly just leave it at that! First and foremost because you completely skipped over any formality, not to mention made us sound like a couple of drunken lunatics!
Eclipsa: Sounds about right to me :)
Omnipotence: We are NOT leaving it at that. We need to record this properly, so other ponies can learn from us.
Eclipsa: Who the hell would be interested in how cider was made? Just drink it.
Omnipotence: It's for historical record! Don't you want future generations to know that it was us who created Cider, even if it was unorthodox in how we made it?
Eclipsa: *Sighs* Alright fine! We'll start over.
Omnipotence: Thank you. Now then, we were camping out in Everfree Forest. Our way of getting away from all the, shall we say, politics of running our two kingdoms. I had brought along the juice of the apple-
Eclipsa: Y'mean Apple Juice?
Omnipotence: Yes. Why?
Eclipsa: Then just call it apple juice. You don't need to be so...queenly, around me, sister.
Omnipotence: Apologies, dear sister. I'm just trying to set an example for the future generations reading this. But it is just us here. I suppose I can tone things down a bit.
Eclipsa: Alright then. As for me, I had brought along alcohol from my kingdom. Unlike my Sister's empire, we had invented alcohol instead of juice, and it quickly lead to our booming economy as well as our jubilant and joyous lifestyle. We have over 30 taverns in our capital alone. I'm rather proud of that fact.
Omnipotence: Quite. So, we had our two drinks, and as we gazed up at the stars, alone on the grassy knoll, Eclipsa suddenly has an idea.
Eclipsa: Why not mix the two together? See what happens.
Omnipotence: Now, what we had created was NOT by any means the cider you all know and enjoy. But it was a new idea that would lead to the modern day cider everypony is familiar with. Our batch was, um....less so.
Eclipsa: Sh@t tasted like f@#%ing gasoline laced with both poison and actual sh@t. That was also poisoned.
Omnipotence: Unfortunately....she's not wrong.
Eclipsa: But it gave us an idea. What if we could make this better? Mess with the recipe until we found something that worked? This could be our thing. Just me and Omni, making cider and hanging out under the stars.
Omnipotence: And it did become our thing. It might not have been any form of royal (And as it turns out legal) kind of hobby, but....it was ours. That was all we needed.
Eclipsa: So we try again. And it turns out even worse.
Omnipotence: We decide to experiment more with the process. Perhaps add more sugar, or find a way to still the alcohol so it doesn't taste quite so much like...
Eclipsa: Like ass.
Omnipotence: Crude, but accurate, dear sister.
Eclipsa: Thank you, sister. Anyway, we take our process back to the palace and start brewing cider as part of an experiment in our laboratories. The scientists are all confused, but are nonetheless excited to be doing something besides testing the Ph levels of oats...speaking of which, why the f@#% is that a thing, Omni?
Omnipotence: Not everypony eats like we do, dear sister. Oats, grains and vegetables are being thought of as alternatives to the usual protein and energy rich diet, we Alicorns enjoy.
Eclipsa:....A world without bacon, is a world I do NOT want to live in, Omni.
Omnipotence: Bacon isn't going anywhere, dear sister. We can still eat as we always have. It's just that our subjects don't eat meat.
Eclipsa: Right....why?
Omnipotence: They have their reasons, dear sister. Anyway, we start making changes to the process and as we do so we start to see a better and better cider as a result. The first thing we did was...oh wait.
Elcipsa: What is it?
Omnipotence: Well,it just occurred to me....should we actually describe the process itself? I mean that would basically be like telling anypony, including children how to make Cider!
Eclipsa:.....I don't see a problem.
Omnipotence: It would be bad, dear sister.
Eclipsa: We don't have to give a recipe, or anything. We just list the steps and the process. That way they can learn but not enough to do it themselves. Plus, if this really does become as popular as we think it will, then everypony will know how anyways!
Omnipotence: Huh. That's surprisingly astute of you, sister.
Eclipsa: And that way they can't hold us accountable when they're foals get drunk off their asses, making their own cider.
Omnipotence: And there it is. You had me worried for a second. Very well. The first thing we did was we took whole apples and ran them through a special invention that broke down the apples into smaller pieces.
Eclipsa: Once pulverized (Man, I love that word) the apple bits are ready to be pressed and the juice is extracted. Once the juice is out, we got our cider! But the problem is it's non-alcoholic. Can you imagine ponies drinking NON-alcoholic apple cider?! What a horrible world that would be, right?
Omnipotence: ....um, are you asking me?
Eclipsa: Nope....anyway, with our normal, painfully non-alcoholic cider, we needed to find a way to actually make it...non-non alcoholic.
Omnipotence: Um...Right. We found that yeast, would help alleviate the typical properties of alcohol, and then we added the pure alcohol itself, but stilled so it sterilized the reaction of the yeast.
Eclipse: The last step is you have to ferment it. A waiting period of about two to three weeks is definitely the best option.
Omnipotence: Are you referring to what we did, or are you telling them how long to ferment the cider themselves?
Eclipsa: Yes.
Omnipotence: ....Okay? Well, after a few weeks, we had our first batch of actual cider. We were rather surprised to find that it had foam at the top, which only made it more enjoyable to drink.