An Ode To Trying New Pantry Staples, Ft. Living Vinegar

This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase I may earn a commission. Learn more.

You know how certain items, however impractical, just call to you from the grocery store shelves? Often they’re beautifully packaged things that you just kind of want for their own sake—almost irrespective of their contents. And it’s those same items that tend to sit indefinitely in the pantry, immortalized in a little food museum.

If you’re like me, you’ll eventually pick them up, see that they’ve expired, sigh, reason that actually they’ve probably got a few more months left, put them back in the pantry, rinse, and repeat. In my pantry, items that fall into this category currently include a cool metal tube of garlic paste, a handsome can of refried pinto beans, and a glass jar of wild blueberry jam. All are full of potential, but somehow they’ve taken on a life of their own and feel like an ordeal to actually open and use.

Another of these items in my pantry at the moment is Acid League’s Living Vinegar. I picked it up a few days ago and noticed that it had expired at the end of December 2024. Two weeks past expiration for a pantry staple is hardly expired by my standards, but nonetheless I decided to seize the day and experiment.

I mean, look how pretty she is. If I were in the aisles of Wegman’s and happened upon this, I’d pick it up and buy it all over again. But this time I’d open it sooner.

The Vinegar

Fancy vinegar? Don’t mind if I do. I paid about $17 for 12.7oz, which is relatively steep depending on your vinegar standards. But it’s lovely, living (probiotic), Strawberry Rosé flavor, and all around seemed like as good an investment as any to sit in my pantry for months until expiry.

One thing that intrigued me about this vinegar is the idea of everyday items with added benefits. It’s like non-alcoholic cocktails with herbs and adaptogens, or makeup that’s good for your skin. Why not get just more out of the things we use? So vinegar with probiotic cultures sounded like a good idea.

The ingredients are also appealingly simple: rosé wine, strawberry juice, living bacterial culture. That’s it. I noticed one Amazon reviewer rake this product over the coals because they could find no evidence of living cultures (the “mother” as they say), and deemed the whole thing a scam. But behold:

These look exactly like the little floating particulates in my kombucha. Maybe that reviewer had an odd bottle, but my bottle seemed to make good on its promise.

The Applications

Below are the spoils of my initial experiments. All are very simple, which added to the fun and ease of the process. I took some cues from Acid League on suggested applications.

1. A strawberry doused in living vinegar.

The strawberries happened to be exquisitely ripe and sweet, and the vinegar added tanginess and depth that transformed this into a very sophisticated-seeming snack. This felt like the easiest possible way to add layers of flavor to something sweet.

2. An elevated coconut yogurt plate.

Cocojune Vanilla Chamomile coconut yogurt with strawberries, walnuts, hemp seeds, and a drizzle of living vinegar. The other ingredients already made for a beautiful treat, but—as with the plain strawberry—the vinegar brought the whole thing to complex new heights. 10/10.

3. A probiotic spritz.

A simple concoction of seltzer, a splash of kombucha, and a smaller splash of the living vinegar. Delightful, light, and refreshing.

The Takeaways

It was a fun exercise to intentionally put to use something that I had purchased on a whim. My takeaways were these:

1. It’s worthwhile to create time for consequence-free kitchen play. What does cooking feel like to you? For me, it usually feels like a chore with a clear desired outcome: make something in as little time as possible that’s tasty, hearty, and nutritious. Sometimes I audibly groan when it’s time to cook dinner. But experimenting in a setting where a meal is not imminently needed is really nice. Cooking (or just fiddling with ingredients—no heat is necessarily needed) without an end in mind can spark creativity and remind you of the joy of making food.

2. Buying unique items with no explicit purpose from time to time is also worthwhile. Will some of the items go to waste? Maybe. But the answer isn’t always to avoid those one offs that call to you, even if you have no stated purpose or plan for them. Instead, be intentional about experimenting with them, sans expectations. It’s fun and freeing, and you might just make it out feeling re-inspired.