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Tarragon Vinegar

A vinegar infused with tarragon leaves, made by steeping in white wine vinegar and clarifying with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tarragon Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Gather tarragon just before it flowers and strip the leaves.

  2. In a stone jar, combine the tarragon leaves with the white wine vinegar.

  3. Cover the jar and let it infuse for 14 days.

  4. Strain the mixture through a flannel bag.

Fine and bottle

  1. For every 4 gallons, add ½ ounce of dissolved isinglass.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a cask or stone bottle and let it stand for 1 to 2 months to fine.

  3. Bottle the vinegar in pint or half-pint bottles.

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. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Tarragon + white winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tarragon leaves
Provide the main aromatic flavour that defines the vinegar.
White wine vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the leaves and gives the acidic base.
Isinglass
Fining agent that collects suspended particles so the finished vinegar clears.

The step that matters

Covering and infusing the leaves for 14 days. The leaves must stay fully submerged and the jar sealed so the vinegar extracts flavour evenly without evaporating or spoiling. Gathering the leaves just before flowering matters because flavour is strongest then.

“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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