Want flavor? Try vinegar

Want to kick flavors up a notch? Brighten a sauce, spark a sauté, embolden a roast?

Try a splash of vinegar. Its acidic notes provide balance and enhance a dish. But as with wine, not all vinegars are the same. There is a big difference between vinegars made in small batches and those made in commercial vats.

While balsamic and sherry vinegar have captured our attention over the years, some fabulous artisan vinegar is being brewed much closer to home.

Leatherwood Vinegary of Long Prairie, Minn. (about two hours from the Twin Cities), is the first (if not only) of its kind in the state. Its vinegar is made from the fruit grown in Leatherwood's orchards and nearby gardens. Apples, cherries, plums, grapes and rhubarb are fermented into wines, then inoculated with the "mother" and brewed into vinegar. Each of these vinegars relies on the fruit from which it is made for its flavor; nothing else is added. (In commercial varieties, artificial flavors are often added after the vinegar is made.)

Leatherwood's herb vinegars are infusions of the leaves from Leatherwood's herb gardens, steeped for several weeks to impart their flavors. Ron and Nancy Leasman, who founded this small business, have been making vinegar commercially for about five years, but it's safe to say that they've been at it most of their lives.

Ron has always made his own wine; Nancy is an herbalist, avid gardener and inventive cook (and artist). Her basil vinegar is the taste of summer itself. Just try the dill vinegar on broiled walleye and you'll never reach for tartar sauce again.

To make vinegar, Ron uses a "mother" he keeps "alive" batch after batch, allowing each of the different brews at least eight months to come into their own. The wine he makes takes its time fermenting.

Many flavor variations

Of the more than 15 different fruit vinegars and the 14 fruit and herb combinations, several unusual flavors truly shine. The dill in apple vinegar is fabulous on French fries and potato chips, the thyme in grape vinegar is lovely in chicken salads, and the jalapeño-infused vinegar packs puckery heat.

In my kitchen, just a drizzle of the tarragon-rhubarb vinegar turned simple braised chicken into a dazzling one-pot dish; tossing roasted root vegetables with the rosemary vinegar and the stir-fried broccoli and carrots in the coriander-apple vinegar made those ordinary dishes memorable.

Just as imported balsamic and sherry vinegars are not cheap, these artisan fruit-wine vinegars are not, either -- between $10 and $15 for 10 to 11 ounces. There's a lot of time and thought that goes into each small batch, from the hand-picked fruit to the slow-brewed wines and then fermented vinegars.

Ron swears his brews have medicinal powers, that just a tablespoon a day has helped ease his bum knee. Vinegar has long been thought a home remedy for a variety of ailments. That may or may not be true. What I do know is that everything I've splashed this magical stuff on tastes really good.