Pucker up: vinegar is the drink of the day. Said to pack a trolley load of health benefits, a shot of apple cider vinegar is this year’s avocado toast.
It certainly ticks a lot of hipster boxes: alcohol-free drinks for grown-ups, fermentation for health, low sugar. Most of the brands on the market are produced on a small scale (which qualifies them for the ‘artisan’ label) and British-made, so ‘local’.
But I had my doubts. First there’s the slogans. ‘Plant-based, gut-loving wellness tonic’ is the sort of rhetoric that makes me want to chomp on a Peperami with a Bacardi Breezer. Then there’s the price. Around £15 for 250ml is not unusual – given that a daily dose is a tablespoonful (15ml), that’s not far off a pound a pop. I rolled my eyes as I mixed up a turmeric, ginger and horseradish number from The Bath Alchemist.
Reader, I’m converted. Not to swigging back an undiluted spoonful: I’ll leave that to the cold-water swimmers and endurance cyclists. But mixed with water – about a tablespoon to 300ml of sparkling is my preferred poison – it’s a savoury-sweet, mouth-filling revelation, as satisfying a flavour as alcohol, without the hangover or the calorie load. And no, not particularly sour at all.
Of course, I’m late to this. There’s nothing new about drinking vinegar. Back in the 5th century BC Hippocrates was recommending a vinegar and honey mix as a treatment for sepsis. Cleopatra teased Mark Antony by dissolving a pearl in vinegar to create a 10 million sesterce (coin) meal. Roman soldiers marched hydrated by posca, a vinegar, salt and water mix, and it’s that which was offered on a sponge to Jesus at the Crucifixion.
All those were wine vinegars, but fast-forward to modern times, and cider vinegar comes to the fore. In the 1970s, the socks-with-sandal-wearing counterculture types started taking a daily shot, after the publication of Apple Cider Vinegar Miracle System by Paul C Bragg, which promised it could give you ‘a longer, healthier, youthful life’. He had a poor record as a health expert, dismissed by medics as a charlatan and investigated by the Food and Drug Administration, with a history of making false health claims for his products. But, improbably, he hit upon something with the vinegar. Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar is still available to buy in wholefood shops.
Studies indicate that, along with fighting diabetes and helping with weight loss, vinegar may help reduce ‘bad’ cholesterol and fight certain cancers. Whether cider vinegar is more effective than others has yet to be shown, but you may want to choose a ‘live’ vinegar, as the bacteria act as a probiotic, boosting your gut’s microbiota.
