Vinegar puts tang in your cocktail

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They're lined up in neat rows along the bar counter, each bottle 10 years older than the previous one. The bartender reaches for the 20-year, muddles a handful of kumquats, adds a squeeze of tangerine juice, and pours the syrupy elixir into the cocktail glass.

Only it's not liquor. It's vinegar, the latest kitchen ingredient to find permanent shelf space behind the bar.

"Vinegar provides an acid backbone for a cocktail and has that interesting complexity from the fruit and caramel notes," explains Duggan McDonnell, owner and lead bartender of Cantina lounge in San Francisco. "It's a little unexpected, but it works really well in a cocktail."

That unmistakable tang and bright acidity is what draws bartenders to vin aigre (sour wine). Historically, white and apple cider vinegars were boiled into syrups for shrub fruit cocktails or added straight up to drinks for their purported medicinal qualities. These days, bartenders are using the tangy acids' aged cousins, balsamic and sherry, to achieve a new level of depth and complexity in cocktails.

But first you've got to choose the vinegar to feature from among the dozens lining store shelves. Vinegar is made by oxidizing the ethanol in wine (sherry, champagne, red wine vinegars), fruit juices (apple cider, raspberry, citrus -- although these are altogether different from white vinegar flavored with fruits), grape must (balsamic), rice, beer and a host of other ingredients. Basically, if you can ferment it, you can turn it into vinegar.

"You absolutely must use high quality vinegar like Banyuls, aged sherry or balsamic," advises McDonnell. "Balance it with a sweet component like simple syrup or liqueur for a point-counterpoint balance that keeps the vinegar from going over the top."

In other words, a generous pour of white vinegar (made from pure grain alcohol) or lip-puckering apple cider vinegar served straight up with vodka is going to taste like a shot of pure vinegar. Instead, choose fuller flavored vinegars such as aged balsamic or sherry wine and enlist a "taste as you go" rule. With such strong acidity, a little goes a long way.

At Cyrus in California's Sonoma wine country, bartender Scott Beattie adds just a splash of aged balsamic to fresh pressed tomato juice, basil, vodka and a grey sea salt rim in his Caprese Martini. Further South, Eric Alperin, a Los Angeles based bartender who designed Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton's Osteria Mozza cocktail menu, even uses an eyedropper to keep the balance in check.

For his Fragola e Aceto, a cocktail inspired by the Italian ice cream dessert with strawberries and balsamic, Alperin pours a thin layer of aceto balsamico (quality aged balsamic) into a cocktail glass and tops it with an icy mixture of muddled basil, strawberry simple syrup, lime juice and vodka. An eyedropper full of balsamic served alongside puts the cocktail sipper in charge of ramping up -- or down -- her vinegar intake.

Rather than using an expensive aceto balsamico, some bartenders prefer to reduce a less expensive balsamic vinegar, which cooks out some of the acid and concentrates the flavors. In "The Art of the Bar," authors Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz make a balsamic gastrique (a thick sauce made from reduced vinegar and caramelized sugar) to lend a subtle sangria-like quality to their Sangre de Fresa. The fruity cocktail is made with muddled strawberries, basil, lime juice, Cachaca (a Brazilian sugar cane spirit) and a splash of orange liqueur.