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Raspberry or Blackberry Vinegar

A fermented vinegar made by crushing berries, steeping in cider vinegar, adding water and sugar, boiling, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Raspberry or Blackberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the berries

  1. Crush the berries well in a large crock using a wooden mallet.

  2. Cover the crushed berries with cider vinegar, 1 inch deep.

  3. Place the crock in the hot sunshine for a day.

  4. Leave it in the cellar overnight.

  5. Stir the mixture six times during the day.

  6. Strain and squeeze the berries to extract the liquid, then discard the solids.

  7. Repeat crushing and steeping with another gallon of mashed berries.

  8. Leave it in the sun and cellar as before.

Make the syrup

  1. Measure the liquid obtained and add 1 pint of water for each quart of liquid.

  2. For every pint of water added, mix in 5 pounds of sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a porcelain-lined or agate-iron kettle.

  4. Heat over the fire, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Boil hard for 1 minute to remove scum.

  7. Skim the mixture.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Strain the mixture.

Bottle

  1. Bottle while still warm.

  2. Seal the bottles with a mixture of beeswax and rosin.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Berries
Provide the flavour and colour that the vinegar draws out during steeping.
Cider vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts juice and flavour from the crushed berries.
Sugar
Sweetens the finished vinegar and balances its acidity.

The step that matters

Boil hard for 1 minute to remove scum. Boiling the sweetened liquid brings scum and impurities to the surface, which must be skimmed off so the finished vinegar stays clear and keeps well.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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