Aside from consuming it, it was also used topically as a disinfectant going back to at least 2,000 B.C. and right through cholera and plague pandemics and the Great War of the 20th century. The same bactericidal properties make it a great preservative, and vinegar has been used to pickle veggies for long shelf life all over the world since long before refrigeration.

But vinegar carries a special association with France, which distinguished its national offerings by carefully protecting proprietary production techniques as early as the 14th century. Fine distinctive French vinegars were also known by the wine they were made from. The world’s first vinegars most likely came from failed attempts to produce good spirits. Hence regional alcohols and regional vinegars often share a common source material: wine vinegar in France and Italy, malt vinegar in the U.S. and U.K., and rice vinegar in Japan. To this day France, Italy, and Spain are still primary global exporters of some of the world’s favourite craft vinegars. But it is to France alone that we owe the word “vinegar,” from vin aigre or ‘sour wine.’

The first fermentation step is accomplished by yeast, which reliably converts sugar into alcohol.

Next come the acetobacter bacteria which convert alcohol into acetic acid. Although, this step is not technically fermentation but rather oxidation, and indeed oxygen is a required presence for the bacteria to do their work. You can imagine that these acetobacter bacteria are as much a worrying sign for the winemaker as they are the best friend of the vinegar producer!

Industrial white vinegar production involves the circulation of air through the solution to speed up the acetification process. White vinegar may in a sense represent vinegar in its purest form, produced directly (and quickly) from refined ethanol.

A clear distinction can be made between industrially produced vinegar and traditional biological slow vinegar. When vinegar is aged with its starting material, it gradually accumulates refined, nuanced flavours. The barrels used to age fine vinegars contribute their characteristics to the final product as well. As a general rule of thumb, the better the source materials and the more skillfully aged, the finer and more complex the resulting vinegar.

The virtually endless options for fruits, grains (or even milks or honeys), different yeasts, aging techniques, and even different types of acetobacter bacteria, are responsible for a vast world of subtle flavours easily as diverse and refined as wine or coffee, with its own dedicated legions of connoisseurs.

There seems to be a value hierarchy with fine slow-aged vinegars at the top and white vinegar at the bottom. But make no mistake! Even the humble white vinegar, sometimes denigrated as merely a cleaning product, has a lot to offer the human body.

• We can consider the millennia of history, the enormity of geographical scale, and the sheer vastness of vinegar’s story in time and space. This endless, beginningless condiment was produced by happy self-motivated acetobacters long before there were humans to consume it. And those tiny busybodies will probably continue to make more of it long after humans are gone!
• We can consider the scientific progress of our brightest minds, who are still scratching the surface of vinegar’s complex interaction with human physiology and the many health benefits it has to offer. Just because it has been used for thousands of years does not mean that breaking research will fail to uncover the hitherto unknown effects of this strange brew. I promise you: we still have much to learn.
• We can enjoy the taste! The signature snap of acetic acid is, after all, a very unique brightness that adds an irreplaceable dimension to meals. Aside from the up-front tanginess, we can tune in to the subtler sensory fields of different balsamics, apple ciders, wine and rice vinegars, and endless other acetic amigos.

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