It was once the preserve of teenagers, the tipple of bus stops, a route to quick, cheap drunkenness that tasted sweetly of apples. It was the flavour of your first hangover, the scent of your first kiss. And if you run through those names today, they seem like stations on a train journey back to your youth: Diamond White, Strongbow, White Lightning, Blackthorn.

Now cider has been Eliza Doolittled: rebranded, remodelled and made respectable. No longer swigged lukewarm from cans, it comes in glass bottles and is served over ice, while the emphasis is placed maturely upon the apple flavour, not cider's ability to get drinkers inebriated at pace. Some 970m pints of cider were consumed in Britain last year, with sales in bars and nightclubs rising by 36%; Asda alone saw a 1,000% increase in cider sales over Christmas. And while the market leader remains Strongbow, at the heart of the great cider revival sits Magners, the UK incarnation of the Irish brand Bulmers, and the fastest-growing cider brand, which enjoyed a 225% increase in sales last year.

The transformation of British cider-drinking began quietly in Glasgow in 2003. An established brand in Ireland since the 1930s, Bulmers noted that the British cider market had devolved, in the words of its marketing director, Maurice Breen, "into a battle between two major brands, who had been in a fight to reach the lowest price. I first tried cider when I was 18. It was probably Woodpecker. And then I didn't touch it for another 20 years. We felt we had to shake up people's preconceptions, that it was OK to drink cider." The company decided to try out a premium version of the drink in Scotland, and then in London and the rest of the UK, principally targeting male and female beer-drinkers of all ages.

"It's a pretty clever plan," says Adam Withrington, drinks editor of the Publican, "but my greatest belief is it's just luck, like when people go surfing and they hit a riptide." Magners did much to bolster its luck, however, embarking upon a £20m marketing campaign that encompassed television and radio, bus stops, railway stations, and affiliated the brand with both golf and rugby by sponsoring the London Wasps, the Edinburgh Rugby team and now the Magners League. This summer, Magners will align itself with the arts, sponsoring maps and signs at the Edinburgh Fringe.

While some make a big kerfuffle over a new clutch of "celebrity cider drinkers" from Lily Allen to the Arctic Monkeys, Magners' success is undoubtedly more attributable to the brand's omnipresence. "They were creating an amazing noise, unlike anything I've ever seen before," says Withrington.

The key development in the cider renaissance is the introduction of ice, to both chill and dilute the product. "Ice was all Magners," says Withrington. "The only time I'd ever heard of it before was in Withnail and I." Bulmers' Breen argues that the ice complements the fresh juice in the product. It is, however, in keeping with the increasing demand for drinks served extra-cold; indeed, following on from Extra Cold Guinness and Carling, Bulmers has just launched an extra-cold draught cider in Ireland. "Coke and Britvic are also calling for more ice in soft drinks," says Withrington, "and Diageo are saying that spirits should be served with more ice. There's an element of quality about it."

That cider should ever come to be associated with the word "quality" is perhaps the most baffling element in the revival of a drink once known affectionately as "tramp juice", yet it is just one in a number of previously socially unacceptable beverages to be rehabilitated - cider's renaissance has, for example, arrived hand-in-hand with the recent rosé revival, while sherry, once the taste of suburban Sunday afternoons, has been recast as a sophisticated drink. Next up, apparently, is perry, or pear cider. Withrington cites Brothers, sold at a number of music festivals last summer, and a Swedish pear cider called Kopparberg: "There's an unbelievable amount of noise about it, no marketing as yet, but it's staggering - it's already listed by eight pub companies as a drink they plan to stock." Great things are anticipated for pear cider "because pear is a bit sweeter than apple, and people expect it will be easier to drink for women. That's the goal for everyone, to find a drink for women." Does this mean, perhaps, a revival for Babycham? "The problem with perry," says Iain Loe of Camra, which publishes a Good Cider Guide, "is that it should be made from perry pears; a perry pear tree will take 30 years to mature, and a lot were grubbed up in agricultural reforms."

There have been several repercussions from the success of Magners. One has been the bristling of the UK's major brewer, Scottish & Newcastle. In 2005 the company brought out Strongbow Sirrus in response to Magners. However, the brand failed to establish itself as a premium cider - tainted, perhaps, by its association with the original Strongbow. Undaunted, in 2006 Scottish & Newcastle reintroduced one of its old brands, Bulmers Original (confusingly, Bulmers in the UK has nothing to do with Bulmers in Ireland). "Bulmers Original looks the same [as Magners] and is served the same way, but it is cheaper," says Withrington. "It has an extremely aggressive marketing campaign and it is targeting Magners, and they will not rest until they get them. Scottish and Newcastle is stopping all their pubs stocking Magners. You'd expect more from the top brewer." There is, you might argue, a point of historical principle: Strongbow is named after the Anglo-Norman knight Richard de Clare, nicknamed "Strongbow" because he relied heavily on his formidable archers during his wars in Ireland.

But while the big brewers scuffle over market domination, the flourishing interest in cider has also meant a boost for traditional cider makers. "Magners have obviously done a very good marketing job, but I wouldn't say it has a great deal of flavour to it," says Loe. "There are dozens and dozens of traditional cider makers, and the people who drink this are the same sort of people who would drink real ale." Current regulations stipulate that if you produce less than 70 hectolitres of cider you don't have to pay excise duty, so many do not have ambitions to expand their cider production. "For many producers it's often just diversification on a farm," says Loe. "A lot of farms that make cider also make cheese, which is why cider complements cheese so well."

Loe recommends three examples of quality British ciders: Thatchers ("They are based in Somerset, and have been producing traditionally for over 100 years. It does taste of apples!"); Biddendens in Kent ("They started as a vineyard in 1969 and diversified into cider in '78"); and Gwatkins ("Cider from Herefordshire. They were formed in 1991, and now produce 15,000 gallons a year. They have won Camra's national championship twice.")

Reassuringly, for all the soaring success of premium and traditional ciders, cheap ugly cider looks set to remain a rite of passage for British teenagers: three out of five pints of cider bought in Britain are still Strongbow, with sales up 17% last year.

The nation's bus stops, it seems, will be preserved from respectability for the foreseeable future.