For as long as wine and cyder have been fermented, so too has vinegar. The first records date back to circa 400 B.C. when Hippocrates extolled its health benefits. This ‘vinegar’ was always a by-product of alcohol production, and at Aspall it was used in the kitchens at Aspall Hall.

It was in the 1970’s that our father John first looked seriously at turning this ‘spoilt’ cyder in to a separate product stream.

All vinegar is the result of the bacterial fermentation of alcohol to acetic acid. This occurs naturally; however, in the wild, acid forming bacteria – acetobacter – struggles to convert all the available alcohol to acetic acid. The two will eventually chemically react with one another and form ethyl acetate which smells like nail polish remover, and this hides all the natural aromas and flavour of the original product, be it wine or cyder.

It is therefore key to ensure that all the alcohol is converted to acetic acid, and Vinegar brewers such as ourselves merely give the acetobacter a helping hand to achieve this end. To do this, we let them operate in a controlled, oxygen rich environment, and give them plenty of food. In this case, that's cyder. 

Whilst efficient fermentations are an imperative, the real secret to making great vinegar is to feed your acetobacter with only the finest raw material. At Aspall, far from being a by-product of our drinking fermentations, cyder for vinegar making is made with the same care and attention to detail as if it were going to be used for drinking. The alcohol fermentation process is therefore exactly the same and is only fermented from the fresh pressed juice of whole apples.

To enable the controlled fermentation of vinegar at Aspall, Father installed his first acetifier in 1974, and shortly afterwards Aspall Organic Cyder Vinegar was introduced to the health food trade.

In the 1980’s, Father introduced a range of wine vinegars. It’s not warm enough currently for us to produce wine consistently for vinegar production. Clement looked at the possibility of planting vines back in the 1700’s, but apart from a few that grow on the front of Aspall Hall, his and all subsequent attempts have been met with limited success. We continue to explore the possibility.

To provide a high quality wine vinegar, Father looked abroad. His search took him to Spain and the La Rioja region. There he found a family business much like Aspall producing top quality red and white wine vinegar. We continue to import the ‘raw’ vinegar from the Munoz family and process and bottle it under the Aspall name.

More recently, we have introduced a balsamic vinegar. This complimented our organic range of vinegar and is imported from Modena – the home of Italian balsamic.

We continue to innovate and explore new products. Perhaps the best example of this – and maybe our best kept secret – is Aspall Apple Balsamic. A fruity twist on traditional balsamic. It was recently joined by Aspall Cyder Vinegar with raspberry.

An unswerving commitment to quality, and a desire to continually innovate and inform, has made Aspall the number one speciality vinegar brand in the UK.