With peach and blackberry season approaching, it is time to decant my artisanal vinegars and start afresh. I have making my own vinegars for nearly a decade after meeting Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette, a Benedictine monk, at his monastery in Lagrangeville, NY. After he gave us a ‘mother starter’, which has its origins in Paris, I became hooked and never looked back.
A vinegar mother is a gelatinous disc that looks and feels a bit disgusting. But this blob of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria takes fermenting alcoholic liquids and turns them into vinegar.
And not just any vinegar, a vinegar that has distinctive flavors and tastes.
I have three different flavors in the works:
Apple cider with mulling spices.
Peaches, lemon balm and white wine.
Blueberries, blackberries and red wine.
The first thing is to taste each concoction to ensure it is ready to be decanted. One of the mixtures that is only 7 months old needs to age more and is brought back to the basement. All others are ready.
First, I use a stainless steel mesh to strain most of the chunk mother and remnants of fruits or herbs from the newly created vinegar. Some people also use a coffee filter or fine strainer for another filtration, but I like to ingest the mother and leave it working in the mixture.
I now decant these mixtures into clean mason jars or vinegar dispensers. As the vinegars settle, bits of the mother drop to the bottom, like silt on the bottom of a river.
In the back of my larder, I discover an old black and blueberry vinegar. I first sample the one I just decanted noting its mild notes of the wine as well as the fruits contained within. The older one, however, knocks me for a loop with its intensity. It’s like the difference between drinking a beer and straight alcohol.
I think I will try another sip!
