I was disappointed with how my first attempt at a cranberry cider using sweetened dried cranberries turned out. It definitely had cranberry flavor, but it also had a weird viscosity and wasn't that appealing. I also lost a lot of liquid that the berries soaked up.
I decided to try again, this time using cranberry juice. I mixed 1 quart of cranberry juice with a little less than 3 quarts of apple juice, and added enough sugar to bring the sweetness back up to pure apple juice levels. Hopefully this one gets a better result.