— Jaimi Smith

So my favorite vinegars are the ones that I make why do I make vinegars because I drink wine and my wife does not and I have decided that in my life zero glasses of wine is too little and for glasses is too much, right? So after a couple of days I end up with some vinegar on the side and that's a vinegar some some wine left over just that half glass that one glass that's still in the bottle. It's just a little bit tired. So what I did is I started to combining those I bought a live culture vinegar and I just started adding. those bits of wine Into that, I now have a barrel and I've been doing this now for 14 years adding my leftover wine into this barrel and bottling it. So I love red wine vinegar. Just personally I think it's the most complex and sort of useful across the board vinegar. I throw it in anything. There's no rule about which vinegar you can't use necessarily but a good red wine vinegar and I'm not talking about a crap vinegar that has caramel color added to it to make it red. You know good red wine vinegar spend some money on it. It's going to be one of the most prominent ingredients in any dish you use it in. You spent money to get a good piece of fish. You spend money to go to the farmers market to buy good vegetables. Don't put Factory crap vinegar on it. Just don't it. Ruins it. So spend some money on vinegar no matter what you do. You don't spend a lot of money. I'm not talking about the hundreds of dollars of all salmon, you know age stuff like is that great? Yes. That's not what you need spend some money on it. I also make my own cider vinegars Etc. I have time and I think about these things but the ones that I have in my kitchen are absolutely my go-to's the one that I don't make is Sherry vinegar and I use so much Sherry vinegar that I buy the safety brand essay ffi, I buy it in three liter boxes twice a year. So that's a lot of vinegar right folks. Yeah, he's a lot of vinegar. Cherry vinegar is far more potent. And that's when I want just a little bit of flavor and taste from that potency of it. So if I'm making an aioli for example, and I'm adding in just a tablespoon of vinegar, maybe even a half tablespoon. I want that potency that pungency all of that. If I'm doing anything else from sauteing my zucchini with olive oil and garlic and then finishing it with a splash of red wine vinegar and just tossing it all together. So the zucchini juices and the Squash juices in the garlic and the olive oil emulsified together into this bright. Oh, it's just so happy red wine vinegar is my go-to for that white wine vinegar is a good stand in there. But otherwise, you know, unless you're you want to be like me and have seven different kinds of vinegar. Because I overdo everything read a good quality red wine vinegar find one that you really like spend some money on it make that you go to.