Fruit Vinegars

For the full list of ingredients and comprehensive instructions, please see the recipe card below. Before you scroll, there’s important stuff in the blurb!

Fruit Vinegars are a great, inexpensive way to add variety to your kitchen cupboard. You can use them in sauces and dressings instead of balsamic, to add a hint of fruity sweetness that’s unexpected and delicious! They’re pretty versatile too, so you can experiment with different fruits to find your favourite.

With many people looking for more personalised, homemade gifts this year, you could use fancy bottles and label them up ready to give to friends and family. Bottles of fruit vinegar are much easier to make than preserves and will last a lot longer than cakes!

Why not drop off some blueberry vinegar, alongside a batch of Spiced Christmas Cookies this year as part of a thoughtful, handmade gift basket?

We’re not all lucky enough to have an abundance of fruit bushes growing in our gardens so we came up with a handy cheat: frozen fruit works wonderfully for this because when it defrosts it releases all it flavours.

If you’d prefer to use fresh you can, but you’ll need to slice harder berries in half, like blueberries for example.

What can I use Fruit Vinegar for?

You can use fruit vinegars in place of, well, vinegar! They add a hint of sweetness and a fruity taste, so they work wonderfully drizzled on salads. This blueberry version is the perfect substitute for balsamic vinegar in our Giant Jewelled Couscous, or to add extra depth to our Duck Salad.

Do I need any special ingredients or equipment to make Fruit Vinegar?

You will need a jar with a lid that’s completely airtight and won’t allow any liquid to leak out. A Kilner jar is ideal for this, and you can find them on Amazon. You’ll also need bottles to store your fruit vinegar in once it’s ready.

To ensure all the remaining fruit is strained, you could use a fine sieve, but we prefer a muslin cloth or coffee filters: both of these are easily found online.

You can replace all or part of the sweetener with sugar, but do make sure you use a good quality, crunchy granulated sweetener such as Natvia, Sukrin or Candarel Sugarly. It really makes a difference, so don’t skip this step!