Thatchers Cider is aiming to grow its joint venture with Coopers Brewery into millions of litres per year Thatchers Cider being served at the Edinburgh Hotel. Pic: Tricia Watkinson. THATCHERS Cider is confident of growing its Australian business into a several million litre a year operation, with its joint venture with Coopers Brewery a key element. Coopers signed a deal with Thatchers in January to keg and distribute draught Thatchers Gold to the on-premise market in Australia, and Thatchers has had early success, winning Best in Show, Best Cider and Best International Cider at the fourth annual Australian Cider Awards in Melbourne in October. Thatchers head of export Lee Fisher, who was in Adelaide to touch base with Coopers, said the joint venture between 110 year old Thatchers and Coopers, which was founded in Norwood in 1862, was a good fit. "Martin Thatcher, our MD met Tim Cooper (Coopers managing director) when he was over in London and it was always a partnership waiting to happen,"" Mr Fisher said. Two family businesses, Coopers being fifth generation, Martin is a fourth generation cider maker, like-minded people coming together. "They're doing a great job for us."" Thatchers production director Neil Day said picking up the awards in Melbourne was great. It was a very, very pleasant surprise. It was a blind tasting so they were purely tasting the cider. "To win the overall award, everyone back at the cider mill was over the moon."" Mr Fisher said volumes were relatively low to start with, but the company was confident of good growth. "We're just 11 months into what we see as a long-term partnership and a long term future for us in Australia,"" he said. What we need to do is build awareness of the brand, getting consumers to try it. Cider is on-trend globally, there are a lot of growth markets around the world, Australia being one of the key ones for us. "For us, we see huge opportunity for us to grow to a multi-million litre brand just within the next five years."" Once Thatchers Gold was established in the market the company would look at bringing in other lines. Thatchers Cider is produced in Somerset in southwest England from apple orchards owned by the company. Thatchers Gold is a medium-dry product made with cider apples which are bittersweet or bitter sharp and relatively high in tannins and astringency.