Edible Food Finds: American Vinegar Works
Photos by Linda Campos
A few years ago Rodrigo Vargas became obsessed with vinegar. A frequent road tripper to New England breweries and cideries, he was familiar with all the interesting things happening with alcohol in the region, but when scanning grocery aisles he was struck by what he perceived as a scarcity of quality vinegar, which is, of course, derived from alcohol.
For Vargas—whose background in new product development, strategy and marketing has him wired to think about what doesn’t work and what could be better—a business lightbulb went on.
“Why aren’t there great regional vinegar products?” he found himself wondering in the face of vinegars that mostly, in his estimation, ran the gamut from low-end, mass-produced products to subpar imported ones. “It hit me that the base from which you can elevate vinegar we have in spades in New England.”
Seeing a market opportunity, Vargas launched American Vinegar Works in 2019, which features a collection of nine small-batch vinegars made from craft American cider, wine and beer. The line brings complex flavors with depth, but nothing fancy—just authentic and accessible quality vinegar.
Vargas traces his commitment to simple, quality food back to his Portuguese roots. During summers in his native Portugal, he saw his family celebrate simple, fresh food.
“In making vinegar, I thought about good, accessible products, nothing pretentious, so that people who haven’t thought about vinegar much can use it,” he says.
Ask him about the culinary applications of his vinegars and Vargas has no shortage of suggestions. Add a few dashes of the IPA beer vinegar to finish sautéed mushrooms or a creamy pasta sauce. The porter beer vinegar pairs perfectly with fish and chips and cruciferous vegetables. Use the apple and pear cider hot vinegar for a switchel cocktail. And dress simple microgreens with rice wine vinegar. And the list goes on. “Vinegar is an odd thing,” he says. “It gives a good flavor profile but it only really shines when you use it in food.”
As much as possible, Vargas uses local ingredients for his vinegar, such as Pony Shack Cider for his cider vinegars and Mayflower Brewing Co. and Harpoon Brewery for his beer-based ones. For the sweet and tangy cranberry apple cider vinegar (a finalist for the 2020 Good Food Awards), Pony Shack cider is co-fermented with cranberries from Decas Cranberry Products of Carver; after fermentation, Vargas adds boiled apple cider from Wood’s Cider Mill of Springfield, Vermont.
For now, Vargas’s wine-based vinegars are sourced from California wine and junmai-grade sake from California, but he plans to add vinegars using wine produced in Massachusetts and New York.
Produced out of a commercial kitchen space in Lowell, American Vinegar Works utilizes a production method from the early 1800s sometimes referred to as the German drip method, which involves dripping alcohol onto wood chips as well as on fruits and spices when co-fermenting. “This process produces the best taste and most consistent process, and allows for co-fermentation,” Vargas says. After the two- to three-month fermentation process, the vinegar is aged in old rye barrels or drums for from two to six months—both the vessel and duration depend on the variety.
“I want people to understand what it means to have a naturally and slowly fermented vinegar that’s never filtered or infused, with no preservatives added,” he says. “And I want them to be able to tell the difference.”
As of press time, American Vinegar Works was one of eight companies, and the only one in Massachusetts, selected to be part of the highly selective Chobani Incubator, a nationwide program that provides food and beverage startups with equity and coaching to scale up.
This story appeared in the Spring 2020 issue.
