Spiced Hard Cider

So... Apparently my Walmart apple wine (5 gallons in under $20) was a hit with all of my friends. It was your basic Apfelwein recipe, using Pastuer Champaign yeast, light brown sugar, and Walmart apple juice.

After two months of fermenting, and maybe a little imagination (or a couple glasses), it tasted like a slightly fruity beer. It went down like a beer, anyway..

For my next batch, I want to take a leaf from Captain Morgan's spiced rum, and spice my cider. I want it to enhance it's natural taste, and then add a little burn to the drink (it has an abv of 15% ish... so the real burn isn't noticeable).

Any suggestions as to what spices or herbs I should add?

A couple questions too, along with the former. If I should deciede to add these ingrediants, (I'll probably try about ten one gallon combinations if I feel creative enough) should I add the herbs and spices before or after fermentation? A more important question, would any kind of herb or spice negetively affect fermentation if I added it at the start?

Any thoughts are helpful

for spices i'm thinking wintry: cinnamon, clove (take it easy), nutmeg, cardamom, ginger would probably be nice. maybe a tad of bitter orange peel.

I'd add the spices either at the end of the boil, or at racking. ginger could be boiled and also added at racking.

i don't think any of the spices will affect your fermentation. clove is naturally antiseptic, but probably wouldn't matter in the small quantities you'd need to use.

You're going to want to age this stuff a LONG time. even moderate gravity apfelwein tastes like butt for quite a while in my opinion.

I've added both ginger & lemon zest and they worked well for me. There's so many things you could try, I'd be tempted to add some bruised mint leaf or maybe a couple of cracked juniper berries. Sometimes I like a bit of "bite" in a beverage. Regards, GF.