A Warwickshire-based cider-maker has agreed a deal to supply into the expanding US market as more people on the other side of the pond get a taste for the drink.

Hogan's Cider, of Alcester, has agreed an export deal which will see bottled cider sent as far afield as California, Washington DC and New York.

The company, which sources its fruit from orchards in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, made more than 300,000 litres this year, pressing more than 400 tonnes of apples.

Allen Hogan said the firm had benefited from rising demand for cider on this side of the Atlantic, and there was now something of a renaissance in the US.

He said: “The US is obviously a vast economy. They used to have a cider industry but prohibition came along in the 1920s and 30s and wiped the orchards out.

“Now in the last 10 or 15 years there has been a resurgence in cider-making.”

Hogan’s, which employs four people permanently and an additional four pickers in the key autumn period, initially supplied draft cider to the US after reaching an agreement with exporter Shelton Brothers, but after initial success it has started to supply bottles as well.

Lauren Shepard of Shelton Brothers said: “Traditional English cider is new to the American palate, so we were surprised by how many people wrote to us asking for more Hogan’s draught – even beer drinkers.”

Mr Hogan said the company had also received enquiries from Australia. He said that while only around two per cent of its total output goes to the US, it is a valuable market.

The volume of cider produced annually in the UK is in excess of six million hectolitres, or 130 million UK gallons, and 45 per cent of all the apples grown in the UK are now used here for cider-making.

He said: “We have been lucky in a sense that there has been a growth in the category. Cider has more than doubled in terms of volume so we have been very fortunate to benefit from some of that growth.”