Drink Your Vinegar!

You know vinegar is super-good for you, right? Apple Cider Vinegar, in particular, even has actual scientific research supporting some of its alleged benefits, and may help stabilize blood sugar, lower blood pressure, and assist in digestion. It certainly can’t hurt to add a little more to your diet. And, in fact, there’s no good reason not to enjoy vinegar as a delicious drink mixer.

I know, you’re likely thinking of something lip-puckeringly sour found swimming at the bottom of your salad bowl, but when mixed in the proper proportions with sparkling or still water, vinegar has a far milder and sweeter flavor than you’d think. Obviously, cider vinegar has a apple-ly flavor, but even plain ol’ white vinegar has a surprising mildness if you just add a tablespoon or so to a cup of water.

Vinegar mixed with water and various other ingredients was pretty much the go-to drink of the ancient Romans (called “Posca“):

Basically, we know that soldiers were given a vinegar ration (Vegetius, Concerning Military Matters, 3.3), and that this vinegar could be mixed with water and drunk. (Celsus, On Medicine, 2.27) Hadrian drank posca to ‘be one of the soldiers’ (Historia Augusta: Hadrian, 10.2), and from this we can infer that it wasn’t a drink usually served to the rich. On the contrary, this was a drink sold on the streets! (Suetonius, Vitellius, 12.1) If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense — vinegar is what is left when wine production goes ‘wrong’, or if wine is left exposed for too long. Knowing how much wine the Romans got through, it stands to reason that there was a lot of vinegar knocking about — so, why not put it to use?

You can use any old vinegar for a refreshing drink– just add it to your fizzy water “to taste.” I like about one “glug” in a glass.

I’m not just a solitary lunatic, either. One of my favorite finds of late was a product called “Bevivo,” a Drinking Balsamic Vinegar formulated by local (Seattle) Italian food importer Ritrovo. It’s really amazing, and one bottle lasts a long time. It’s well worth seeking out, or ordering online. I usually add a tablespoon or so to a liter of fizzy water; a bottle lasts me around am month.

This fall, it’s time to try new things. Drinking some vinegar would be a fun new thing to try. You may not like it, but I think it’s delicious!