{"id":6839,"date":"2013-06-10T14:49:49","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T21:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/?p=6839"},"modified":"2015-04-11T21:38:37","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T21:38:37","slug":"raise-a-glass-of-vinegar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/raise-a-glass-of-vinegar\/","title":{"rendered":"Raise a glass of vinegar"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Brace yourself, dear reader.\u00a0 I’m about to make the case for drinking vinegar.<\/p>\n

Not for health \u2013 although there are many advocates of that, too \u2013 but for pleasure.\u00a0 And not straight out of the bottle.<\/p>\n

What I’m touting is a sweet and tart libation made with fruit and sugar to soften the sharp edge of the vinegar and served with a generous splash of sparkling water.\u00a0 It’s light, refreshing and sophisticated, just the thing to sip in the shade on a summer afternoon.\u00a0 Think of it as the cocktail’s non-alcoholic cousin.<\/p>\n

Drinking vinegars have been around for centuries.\u00a0 Colonial Americans drank a vinegar-laced beverage known as a shrub that was similar to an English punch often made with rum or brandy.\u00a0 The vinegar served as a preservative for fresh fruit.<\/p>\n

Today, trend-setting bartenders across the country are making their own vinegar concoctions as the base for signature cocktails.<\/p>\n

My romance with drinking vinegar began a couple of weeks ago when I was having lunch with a friend at Sharp, the student restaurant at the Art Institute of Portland’s culinary school.\u00a0 A rhubarb shrub was on the menu and I never pass up an opportunity to try a new variation on one of my favorite flavors.\u00a0 It was delightful and reminded me of an Italian soda, but with less sugar and just enough acid to pair beautifully with food.<\/p>\n

That evening, we ate at Pok Pok, the wildly popular Thai restaurant on Division Street.\u00a0 Chef Andy Ricker, the James Beard Best Chef Northwest winner in 2011, made his name in Portland before going on to pick up two stars from the New York Times for his Brooklyn outpost, Pok Pok Ny last year.<\/p>\n

Pok Pok has been serving drinking vinegars for years. Since I was the designated driver and rhubarb was one of the offerings on the menu that night, I ordered one.\u00a0 It was even better than my afternoon beverage, with tantalizing flavor and a mildly tart finish. It was every thing I could want in a non-alcoholic drink.<\/p>\n

Ricker bottles some flavors of his drinking vinegars and sells them on the web<\/a> and in his restaurants as Som.\u00a0 Tamarind is especially nice.\u00a0 But rhubarb, alas, is not among the bottled choices.\u00a0 So I just had to figure out how to make it myself.<\/p>\n

It’s not that hard.\u00a0 There are plenty of recipes on the Internet to get you started, but none were just what I wanted.\u00a0 The cold method, in which the fruit is macerated with vinegar and allowed to set until the flavor infuses the vinegar, was most appealing but rhubarb isn’t soft enough to smash easily.\u00a0 That meant cooking the mixture.<\/p>\n

At first I cooked the rhubarb, a chunk of ginger, and equal parts sugar and water together to make a syrup.\u00a0 After the syrup cooled, I strained the rhubarb and ginger out and stirred the vinegar in.\u00a0 That version was pretty good, but it lacked fruity intensity and the vinegar was too sharp for some tastes.\u00a0 More sugar was in order.<\/p>\n

In the end, I settled on cooking everything together, letting the mixture steep, and straining out the chunks of fruit and ginger.\u00a0 It was a taste test winner and much simpler to prepare.\u00a0 Plus the color was far more striking.<\/p>\n

Now I’m ready to try new flavors from the same blueprint.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe strawberry-basil next time.<\/p>\n

Give it a try.\u00a0 I’ll bet you like it.<\/p>\n

RHUBARB GINGER DRINKING VINEGAR<\/strong>
\nMakes about 2 cups<\/em>8 ounces rhubarb stalks, diced into 1\/2-inch chunks
\n1 1\/2-inch length of fresh ginger, sliced thinly
\n1 1\/2 cups superfine sugar
\n1 cup rice wine vinegar<\/p>\n

Combine rhubarb, ginger, 1 1\/4 cups sugar and vinegar together in a medium, non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil.\u00a0 Lower heat and simmer for five minutes.\u00a0 Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes.\u00a0 Strain juice into a glass container and discard the fruit and ginger. \u00a0 Dilute a tablespoon of the syrup in a quarter cup of water and taste.\u00a0 If it’s still to sharp, stir in remaining sugar to taste, stirring until dissolved.\u00a0 Store in a sterilized glass container in the refrigerator. (See Note)<\/p>\n

To serve, place 1 part drinking vinegar over ice in a highball glass.\u00a0 Add 4 parts sparkling water and stir till mixed.\u00a0 Enjoy.<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 Since rice vinegar is relatively low in acidity, plan on consuming the syrup within a couple of weeks.\u00a0 For longer term storage, consider using champagne or white wine vinegar with an acidity level above 5 percent.<\/p>\n

Aleta Watson<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Brace yourself, dear reader.\u00a0 I’m about to make the case for drinking vinegar. Not for health \u2013 although there are many advocates of that, too \u2013 but for pleasure.\u00a0 And not straight out of the bottle. What I’m touting is a sweet and tart libation made with fruit and sugar to soften the sharp … Continue reading Raise a glass of vinegar<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6839"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7292,"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6839\/revisions\/7292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skilletchronicles.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}