A cooking influencer has urged people to not throw away any leftover wine, as you can use it to make a homemade red or white wine vinegar instead.
It’s no secret that Brits love wine. The average Brit drinks the equivalent of roughly 37 bottles of wine per year, which translates to about 3.3 litres of pure alcohol. This equates to a significant increase compared to the 3.3 bottles consumed per person 60 years ago, according data from the World Health Organization (WHO).
But if you’ve ever left with any leftover wine, whether it’s after a big dinner party or a holiday celebration, you don’t have to throw it away. Intead, food influencer and TikToker Violet Witchel is urging people to turn the wine into vinegar.
“We had some friends over and we have this leftover red wine and instead of getting rid of it, one of my professors told me you can use leftover red wine to make homemade red wine vinegar, and it’s super easy,” she told her viewers. “So, let’s make homemade red wine vinegar.”
To do this, Violet explained: “All you have to do is add aerated red wine to a big container, like this. Then you just fill the rest of the container up with water.
You should make sure you add three parts of wine to one part of water.
“And apparently it’s just like making yoghurt, you just have to add a mother vinegar, so you add another vinegar you have at home,” Violet said.
To make your own vinegar, you need to make sure that the ‘mother vinegar’ you add has enough fermenting bacteria culture to turn the alcohol into acetic acid (in combination with oxygen). This can be purchased as “live” or “mother” vinegar or simply as an unpasteurized vinegar. You can also make your own mother vinegar by combining wine and vinegar and leaving it to ferment.
“And you just add a little bit of that to your jar,” she said “Then you’re supposed to cover it with some cheese cloth, so dust and stuff doesn’t get inside it, and just let it sit for three weeks. And supposedly after three weeks, you’ll have red wine vinegar.”
In the comments, people were quick to share the tips on how to make sure you get the best vinegar possible, with one person saying: “I think it needs to be an unfiltered or unpasteurised vinegar tho right? One that has the good mother not a dead commercial vinegar?”
A second person said: “I always stick any leftover redwine into the fridge and then add it to any beef stew, roast or really any beef dish that I make that month.”
However, another viewer said: “lol. Leftover wine… don’t know her.”
