Liam O’Brien of Tilt in Nottingham explains how everyday waste can be turned into vinegars that transform your drinks.

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But here’s the truth: not all waste is waste. With a clean jar, a bit of time and some curiosity, you’ve got the start of something brilliant.

Vinegar is just alcohol that’s taken one more step. Yeast makes booze; acetobacter turns booze into acetic acid. You don’t need to be a scientist, just give it alcohol, oxygen and patience. Old wine, cider, beer, even sugar water will do. Add raw, unpasteurised vinegar or a bit of mother, leave it somewhere warm and dark and let nature work. A few weeks later you’ll have vinegar: sharp, fragrant, layered.

Zero waste sounds noble, but turning lemon pith into a foam no one orders isn’t. Instead, look at what you regularly buy and throw away. Garnish fruit. Wine ends. Citrus odds. Mint stalks. These aren’t scraps, they’re ingredients waiting for purpose. Old berries? Freeze, ferment, turn into fruit wine, then vinegar, then cocktails. Citrus peels? Make a saccharum. Mix with mint and pineapple vinegar for a bright non-alc base. It’s not waste. It’s future flavour.

Beer wastage is one of the industry’s quiet losses. But line-clean beer makes excellent vinegar. Ferment it further with sugar and you’ll get something rich and malty, almost like a Belgian quad. Add ginger and honey and you’ve got the bones of a farmhouse Penicillin.

Even old milk has a place. Nordic shepherds fermented whey with honey into a tangy drink called blaand. Turn that whey into vinegar and you’ve got a secret weapon for pickles, dressings and non-alc serves.

Remember that neon sour mix of the ’90s? Leave it there. Today’s bars deserve better, like gastriques – equal parts vinegar and sugar simmered into a bright, bold syrup. Infuse herbs, fruit, spices. Then use it anywhere citrus would go: Sours, Collinses, Spritzes, even Martinis. Flavour that lingers, not just acidity.

Homemade vinegars and gastriques make instant seasonal drinks. Red wine or port vinegar plus mulling spices plus sugar = instant mulled base. Cider vinegar plus apple juice plus warm spices = mulled apple shrub. Add tea, wine, rum or nothing at all. No slow cooker required, just layers.

Beyond the glass

Use your homemade vinegars on snacks and small plates, roasted veg, dips, pickled bits, anything that makes people linger. Pair with good oils such as Citizens of Soil.

Bars in Spain and Italy have done this forever: culture over calories; hospitality over hurry. And while people drink less, they taste more. Offer a few long, fresh, zero-alc serves and some snacks and watch what happens.

If you’ve got vinegar, you’ve got pickles. Not the fluorescent kind, quick pickles with brightness and personality. Cucumbers become perfect Picklebacks. Onions or shallots make a Gibson worth talking about. Then the fun starts: beetroot in red wine vinegar for Bloody Mary riffs; rhubarb in cider vinegar for gin drinks; carrots shaved and pickled with ginger for a simple bar snack. 

Pickles aren’t just acidic, they’re story, texture, memory. Every great bar has house touches that feel like secrets. These can be yours.

Experiment

Some batches go sideways. A nail polish smell means ethyl acetate, too much oxygen or too little alcohol. Fuzzy mould? Bin it and clean your kit. Fermentation teaches patience more than perfection. And when it works, you’ve made something from nothing. If you’re serving this to others, treat it with respect. Keep records. Keep it clean. Check pH (aim under 4.0). Filter or pasteurise if you need to. Speak to your EHO if you’re unsure. Done right, vinegar is safe, stable and yours to shape.

With time and a bit of leftover product, you can build a flavour library unique to your bar. Vinegars, ferments, infusions. Shelf stable, ready, yours. And when you’ve got a quiet moment, don’t waste that either. Read something. Share something. Start a small fermentation group. Trade books and jars. Collaborate. Coffee shops, bakeries, kitchens all have waste. All have flavour. Most of all, they have people. Talk to them. Ask: What are you working on? What can we build together? What can we each bring to the table? Flavour isn’t found in the bottle. It’s made from what we save and what we share.