Cask-Aged Malt Vinegar

HIGHLAND CASK-AGED MALT VINEGAR

Good vinegar should get used. This one is sharp enough to wake up a dish, with a malty depth and a softness from the wood that most malt vinegar doesn’t have.

It starts as wort from Dornoch Distillery: the same organic heritage barley that goes into their whisky. I ferment it into a wash with my own yeast, then run it through a Schützenbach generator, where acetic acid bacteria turn the alcohol into acid. From there it goes into ex-whisky casks, this batch a Ben Nevis cask, arranged as a three-tier Solera, where older vinegar blends with every new batch. That’s what keeps it consistent, and it’s where the rounded finish comes from.

It’s unpasteurised, so the mother is still alive in the bottle. If cloudy strands form over time, that’s normal. Strain them out or leave them be.

What to use it on

Chips, obviously. But also salad dressings, a splash in a sauce, or deglazing a pan after searing meat. Just as good on a haddock supper as in a monkfish risotto.

The story behind the vinegar

How does an illustrator end up making vinegar in the Highlands of Scotland?

I’ve lived in the Highlands for twelve years: first as an artist while crofting with rare breeds, then in high-end hospitality championing local produce, and more recently behind a whisky bar. Somewhere along the way I noticed that bread, beer, salt and cheese had all had their craft revival, and vinegar hadn’t. It goes on nearly everything we eat, yet most of it is made in a day and a half in an industrial tank, and it tastes like it.

So I bought a titration set and read two-hundred-year-old accounts of the Schützenbach generator. With a grant and the backing of my friends at Dornoch Distillery, I built my first generator in a shipping container on their site. (I have six now.)

Phil and Simon Thompson mash heritage barley for their old-style whisky. I collect the wort from the same mash, ferment it into a wash, and turn that slowly into vinegar over a bed of living mother culture. It then ages in ex-whisky casks on a solera: twelve casks across three tiers, never fully emptied. That means every bottle carries a thread of the vinegar that came before it.

The brothers care about where things come from as much as I do, using organic grains, sustainable energy solutions and paying attention to the seasons. What the distillery makes is what I use: the barley, the water and the wood behind this vinegar are the same ones behind their whisky. That’s why it has depth and a long, mellow finish rather than just a sharp edge.

It’s unpasteurised, unfiltered, and made to be used every day, not saved for best.