Vinegar is over 10,000 years old, with a strong history in ancient times, where it was inadvertently created alongside its alcoholic forbears—wine, beer, and other spirits.
Vessels with traces of vinegar dating back to 6000 B.C. have been found in Egypt and China.
First written about in Babylonian times circa 5000 B.C., vinegar made with dates found its way to kitchens and campfires everywhere.
Vinegar is mentioned—twice—in the Bible (in both the Book of Ruth and in Proverbs). It is specifically called for in the Talmud, to make the haroseth for Passover.
Hippocrates prescribed a watered-down vinegar drink to his patients. Caesar’s army, drank it too; although as a preventative medicine, not as a palliative. Some scholars believe that Jesus, while on the cross, was given a drink of vinegar with water as a painkiller.
While most people think of vinegar as something that is made from wine, it can be made from the fermented juices of virtually any plant material, including rice, grain and fruit. Thus, while European vinegar is basically an alcoholic beverage that has gone sour, and the word vinegar that we use today is French for sour wine (vin is wine and aigre means sour), around the world vinegars are made from a broad variety of bases. Any liquid containing sugar and starch can conceivably be made into vinegar once alcohol fermentation has begun. Different cultures make vinegars made from their local produce, fermenting dates, honey, raisins, rose petals and sugar cane.
Cultures the world over use vinegar in meals as part of marinades, sauces, salsas, mustards, ketchups, relishes, chutneys, sambals, jellies, jams, and preserves—not to mention as a cleaning agent, disinfectant, and medical treatment.
Unopened bottles of vinegar can be stored indefinitely. Producers recommend that opened bottles should be used up within 6 months to enjoy peak flavor; although we have kept vinegars much longer than that (years!). All bottles should be kept in a cool, dark place—including those gourmet bottles with sprigs of herbs inside.
