The most popular alcoholic beverages in the world, wine and beer, are fermented.
However, another substance you likely consume on a daily basis is also fermented, also good for you, and also what you may not expect as a way to get a buzz — vinegar.
Vinegar is a fast-fermented substance created by adding sugar to corn (white vinegar) apples (apple cider vinegar) or grapes (balsamic vinegar).
But you don’t have to be limited to just those.
The Raw Duck, a restaurant in the UK, makes their own vinegars from a variety of fruits and vegetables like watermelon, strawberry, rhubarb, and black cherry.
According to a taste test:
The watermelon was clean and sweet, vaguely reminiscent of those little jelly sweets you’d get in a Woolworths pick ‘n’ mix and only a touch acidic. The strawberry was viscous, potent, and like drinking an acidic coulis. Delicious. The apple was like cider syrup—very alcoholic-tasting and sweet, with a nice, sharp kick-up-the-arse at the end. The raspberry, my favourite, was like the purest distillation of the fruit I’ve ever tasted and was, pleasingly, the most acidic of the lot.
These are called “drinking vinegar”, and they’re a slightly sweeter, more ingestible form of vinegar compared to the one you use in your salad dressing.
They’re meant to be drank with fizzy water, creating a natural sort of soda.
The taste tester reporting being quite tipsy after taste-testing some drinking vinegars, and that’s because as a fermented product, vinegar is similar to wine and beer, just not fermented as long.
Who knows? Maybe we could be ordering a vinegar drink at the bar soon!
