24 Jun 2026
Elena Hogg, founder of local culinary company FOOD by Elena, explores the different varieties of vinegar now available…
Here’s a question for you: what do fruits and grains have in common (other than sounding like an impressively healthy breakfast)? Answer: they both provide the base ingredients of traditional vinegar.
From fruits (specifically, grapes) we get red and white wine vinegars, of course, and there’s apple cider vinegar, too, famed for its many health benefits. Grains, on the other hand, furnish us with standard white vinegar, usually made from corn, and malt vinegar, which is made from barley that’s been brewed into beer.
Fundamentally, making vinegar uses some of the most ancient culinary processes we know of.
Yeast is added to the fruit or grain so that a fermentation process starts and creates wine or beer. Then, bacteria called acetobacter are introduced, which eat up the alcohol and leave behind acetic acid.
So what gives some vinegars the edge over others? How come a big bottle of white spirit vinegar can cost just a couple of quid, while some balsamic vinegars will set you back nearly twenty?
In fact, a quick internet search revealed a small bottle of balsamic vinegar going for a whopping £650 from an optimistic retailer called “Vorrei”, which translates as “I would like”, and wouldn’t we all?
The bottom line is that more expensive vinegars use better starting ingredients, like whole organic fruits, and then undergo lengthy and leisurely aging in wooden barrels. By contrast, more functional vinegars are mass-produced and subjected to flavour-stripping pasteurisation processes. Mystery solved.
For my birthday, my husband gifted me a set of 12 vinegars from a Wiltshire-based producer called The Slow Vinegar Company. The identical, slender bottles give chemistry lab vibes in spite of being achingly artisanal. The website teems with the passion that the company’s two founders clearly have for all things slow and sour, and I can attest that their vinegars do them proud.
With flavours like ‘sweet winter spice’, ‘rhubarb’, ‘strawberry and raspberry’ and ‘ginger’, there’s an option for each season. Several, in fact. I used the tomato vinegar to dress a tomato and chana dhal salad yesterday, which somehow enhanced the viney aspect of the juicy red orbs.
In a fit of adventurous abandon, a half-thimble of the elderberry vinegar, which is a bewitching ruby colour, made it into a slightly bastardised version of a mojito cocktail last weekend, and the little punch it gave was delightful. Perhaps especially because these vinegars are made with such tender patience and flavoursome fruit, there’s a mildness and roundness to the flavours that grants them entry to recipes you’d never normally expect.
The ‘orange and lemon’ vinegar vied with the ‘wild garlic’ one for a place in the sousing liquor for the salmon ceviche I was making for dinner guests a few weeks ago. The fight was so close that a splash of each went in. The brightness and zing of the citrus was perfect for cutting through the oily fish, but the hint of garlic suffused every bite and made for sublime eating, though I say so myself.
Actually, the others did say it too, in fairness.
The beetroot vinegar came into its own pickling some slices of radish which I used to garnish a midweek bowl of ramen. It’s worth the ten minutes it takes. In fact, I often pickle slightly weary–looking pieces of vegetable I find in my crisper drawer to give them a second lease of life, and also because I find they lift my lunch-time salad or my slices of crisp bread and cream cheese.
Finally, I’ve been using the blackcurrant vinegar to deglaze roasting pans, because the resultant jus is always beautifully balanced with just the right amount of kick. It seems wholly wrong to describe a vinegar as mellow, but these ones are so devoid of aggressive acidity that the word fits.
I fully recommend having a wee browse of the website to see what’s there. I have a festival of flavour in my larder now, thanks to these slender vials which are so much fun to play about with. And who doesn’t need a bit more fun in their lives?
