Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar
Damson Vinegar

Damson Vinegar

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Regular price£4.56
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Details

  • Price per 100ml - £1.90
  • Origin - Shropshire
  • Fruit - Damson

Our Damson Vinegar is a beautiful harmony of rich fruit and sharp vinegar. The combination of tastes results in the most delicious and versatile dressing for a salad or ingredient for recipes where you would expect to use a balsamic vinegar. This is a very fine creation indeed using a very rare and special fruit, the Shropshire Prune.

How is it best used?

Such is the intensity of our Damson Vinegar, only a small amount is actually needed with one of our Oils to successfully dress a salad. Like a Balsamic Vinegar, dress your salad first with the Damson Vinegar, then wash it through the fresh leaves with your chosen Extra Virgin Olive Oil or Rapeseed Oil. Within cooking, use it to intensify the flavours of red meats, caramelise onions, or add to gravies and sauces. We urge you to be brave and try a little on your fresh fruit puddings, such as raspberries and strawberries with a little ice on the side. You will be amazed at the taste!

How is this made?

Our Damson Vinegar is made by Fiona Rogers-Coltman in Shropshire, using her locally sourced, rare, Shropshire Prune Damsons infused in a Red Wine Vinegar. Fiona and her Husband have developed a great skill in making things ranging from vinegars to liqueurs. Fiona should be known in Shropshire as The Damson Queen, for her tremendous passion and energy for using the Shropshire Prune in her recipes is assuring a future for this little known gem.

Allergen Advice

Contains sulphites

Fascinating Damson Facts

The Shropshire Prune is really quite an amazing fruit, perfect for use within our Damson Vinegar in fact. It is a type of damson, a subspecies of the plum, and is thought to be a Hybridization of the bullace (the wild plum).  The damson has a distinguished heritage, having been introduced to the country by the Romans. The first written record of the damson dates back to 1676.

The Shropshire Prune is a small (1cm x 1 cm) drupaceous, clingstone fruit, oval, and pointed at one end. Uncooked, its skin is dark blue to indigo, its flesh yellow-green. Cooked, the flesh transforms into a dazzling deep red. The damson tree bears magnificent white blossom in April, and the fruits, if the weather is kind, are ready for harvest from September to October. Even the appearance of the remarkable blossom is a cause for celebration in local communities. In terms of flavour,  the Shropshire Prune is the essence of ‘plum’, and its versatility means  it is excellent for both sweet dishes, such as jams and jellies, and  savoury dishes, such as chutneys and relishes and in this case Damson Vinegar.

The Shropshire Prune trees are a distinctive feature of the local Shropshire landscape, marking the changing seasons through the gnarled form of ancient trees in winter, blossom in spring and deep purple fruits in autumn. Mixed hedgerows including the Shropshire Prune are typical of the area and provide valuable food for livestock and birds.

The Shropshire Prune was common in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Montgomeryshire in orchards and as a hedgerow tree. A similar damson is also present in The Lake District where it is believed to have hybridized slightly differently to suit the local microclimate.  Many Shropshire Prune trees were planted in the 19th century to provide dye. The damson crop was sent, for example, to the Lancashire cotton mills for uniforms, to Kidderminster for the carpet trade, and to Ludlow for the glove trade.

The Shropshire Prune is no longer used for dye. This lack of demand meant that for decades, Shropshire Prune trees have not been planted on a large scale. It also accounts, to a large extent, for why so many of the old orchards have been neglected or grubbed up. Similarly, there is currently no significant commercial culinary use of the Shropshire Prune. Supply (or production) and demand are inextricably linked. If the Shropshire Prune is not being grown, consumers won’t ask for it; if consumers don’t ask for it, it won’t be grown.

Culturally, knowledge and usage of the Shropshire Prune in domestic settings tends to be more common in older people, and there is a danger that this knowledge will die out unless we can capture it now and build on it. In 2010 a group of local interested members from Ludlow Slow Food group were successful in getting the Shropshire Prune to be accepted into the Slow Food “Ark of Taste”.  The Ark of Taste operates to protect and further promote endangered food and drink products around the world.

The Group is working to raise awareness of this most delicious autumn fruit.  Their goal is to protect and nurture the Shropshire Prune by encouraging food producers, retailers and consumers to identify the fruit by its variety, just as apples are identified by their variety. They are also encouraging individuals to plant Shropshire Prune orchards.

Fiona Rogers-Coltman, who makes our Damson Vinegar is at the forefront of preservation of this wonderful fruit and has her own orchard of 30 trees.

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