Chefs, it’s time! Dornoch Craft Vinegar is officially available for trade, and I’ve been dying to write this post.
Click here for the trade page, or email me, maddy@dornochcraftvinegar.com
It’s been exactly a year since I started running batch tests. The months since have gone on feeding generators, filling casks and doing a lot of taste testing in my little vinegar shack, a converted shipping container at the Dornoch Distillery bottling warehouse site. The first trade release is what came out of all that: two vinegars in 1L and 5L formats, made for working kitchens.
Plastic bottles, plain labels
The trade release comes in food-safe plastic with simple labels, and that’s on purpose. No glass on the pass, please chef. The fancy labels are still at the printers, and the public release follows next month once they’re here.
How it’s made
Both vinegars are double-fermented. It starts with wort, the sweet liquid from mashed malted barley, collected at the distillery just down the road. I ferment that into a wash, which is the first fermentation. The wash then goes through my generators, where acetic acid bacteria slowly turn the alcohol into vinegar, and that’s the second. After that the vinegar rests in ex-whisky casks here in the Highlands. Nothing is infused and nothing is added. The flavour comes from the grain, the fermentation and the wood.
Whisky Cask-Aged Malt Vinegar
This one spent two months resting in an oak cask that once held a 2013 Ben Nevis. On the nose there’s a gentle tingle, green apples and fresh baked malty tones. After the acetic burst you get pink peppercorns, malted bread, vanilla and baked apples. The finish is slightly drying but warming, with rich umami, a long salinity and lingering oak and minerality. It sits at 6% acidity and is the everyday workhorse: dressings, quick pickles, pan sauces, and a splash over anything rich that needs waking up.
Peated Malt Vinegar
This one had two months in a 1998 Glen Garioch cask. Smoke and burnt caramel come first, with milk chocolate, acetic brightness and toasted oak behind them. The palate brings spicy peat, toasted oak, sage, clementines, flint and minerality, and it finishes juicy and round with buttery wholegrain toast. At 6.6% acidity, it would slap on slow roast pork or grilled veg, anywhere you want a bit of smoke and a lot of lift. It’s also a good stand-in for liquid smoke in a homemade barbecue sauce.
A very good week
My crowning glory lately came from Bart Stratfold, executive chef at Timberyard in Edinburgh, which picked up a Michelin Green Star this year to go with its Michelin star, as you do. He called the vinegar “truly superb… one of the best vinegars I have ever tried”. I’m still not over it. Thank you, Bart.
If you’d like to cook with it, the trade page has the formats and how to order. Or email me at maddy@dornochcraftvinegar.com and I’ll send you a sample to try first.
