Name: How to Make Tarragon Vinegar
Ingredients: 2 bunches fresh tarragon; 1 quart white-wine vinegar

Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

How to Make Tarragon Vinegar

Ingredients

2 bunches fresh tarragon
1 quart white-wine vinegar

Directions

Infuse

Place the tarragon in a quart jar.
Fill the jar with white-wine vinegar and cover tightly.
Store in a cool, dark place for 2 to 3 weeks.

Strain and bottle

Strain the vinegar and bottle it.
Fill the jar again with fresh vinegar and store.

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.

Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,493 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Tarragon + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together521 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh tarragon: Supplies the aroma and flavour that the vinegar takes up during steeping.
White-wine vinegar: Acts as the solvent that draws flavour from the herb and adds sharp acidity.

“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.