Vinegar is the basis of the fashionable drink in London
Who was going to tell the Roman soldiers that the posca , the vinegar and water-based drink that they consumed, above all, on campaign -so much so that it was considered part of their salary- was going to become fashionable in the 21st century. And not precisely among legionnaires, but almost the opposite: among young people the sea of pacifists in search of the holy grail of clean eating, that is, the healthiest food -and drink- possible.
The drop in alcohol consumption, which is increasingly pronounced, is another reason that has made the Millennial and Z generations seek options beyond the classic beer at the time of leaving. Because, of course, soft drinks, with their tons of sugar, preservatives and dyes, are not a satisfactory answer to your concerns either.
“ I don't like sugary drinks. We wanted to create soft drinks that weren't like that, and that went hand in hand with our approach to food, which is based on simplicity and the pure expression of ingredients”, says Rory McCoy.
The founder of the London restaurant Little Duck - The Picklery, also a Millennial, began searching old recipes in books and on the internet for inspiration. he remembered drinking apple cider vinegar as a child -which is now used, apparently, in detox diets and to lose weight-, and it occurred to him to start there. “What I found was quite primitive, and we wanted something of a higher quality for our restaurant. We felt we could do better,” he tells us.
In the end, he ended up hitting the key by inventing drinks himself that use as a base raw apple cider vinegar -unpasteurized-, the healthiest, according to what he details, to which he adds ingredients such as blueberry and sage or purple carrot and ginger, as well as the least possible amount of sugar. Both these recipes and those of kombucha , which they started doing shortly after, have been a success.
“Everyone asks for the vinegars to drink. They give you a rush like caffeine or sugar, but it's from the vinegar,” explains McCoy. “They taste like a very clean fruit drink, the purity of fruits and vegetables. The vinegar adds a tart touch to the palette at the end of each sip. They are healthy, refreshing, satisfying, addictive. They carry fruit, sugar, vinegar and soda, nothing else”, summarizes the chef.
As if that were not enough, the new “ sober-curious ” have also given a boost to these recipes. “The increase is more than remarkable. Sales of our soft drinks grow every six months and they continue to do so due to the changing habits of our customers. People come to us just for them. In fact, kombucha cocktails and kombucha as is peaked last January since we started making them,” he recalls, looking back over five years.
Now, from Little Duck - The Piclery they want the whole country to enjoy their drinks, and for this reason they are working on go online shopping. But in reality there is nothing like sitting down in its intimate restaurant to try them, a space with an open and seasonal kitchen that also works as a fermentation laboratory and a natural wine bar.
And, if you like them a lot, you can also take them home, in a jug straight from the fridge and much richer than the one the Romans used to drink: their concoction only had water, vinegar or vinegared wine and aromatic herbs, and its mission actually it was prevent legionnaires from catching dysentery, because the vinegar managed to kill a large part of the microorganisms present in the water of the rivers near those that stopped.