It’s Fire Cider Season: Vinegar For Your Restorative Health

One fall day, sometime in the ’70s, Rosemary Gladstar, the so-called “godmother of modern herbalism” was looking for a warmup. She filled a jar with apple cider vinegar and added ginger, horseradish, onions, garlic, chili peppers and herbs — the rest is restorative health history.

Gladstar’s fire cider, now replicated and sold commercially by many, is a spicy, tangy tincture meant to be drunk during the dark, wet, cold-and- flu season months. Although the name “fire cider” has recently been tied up in lawsuits, the grassroots usage of fire cider as a DIY elixir for the people  hasn’t changed in half a century.

In Gladstar’s 2019 Fire Cider book, she and friends contributed 101 recipes based on the original concoction, adding modern versions such as Bloody Mary Fire Cider and a Dark Moonshine recipe, proving that fire cider can take many forms.

Lauren Haynes, founder of Wooden Spoon Herbs in Tennessee, took cues from Gladstar’s teachings, building a national brand based on herbal medicine. For her Fire Cider, Haynes steeps herbs, such as rosemary and thyme, and fresh vegetables, including ginger, garlic, onion and horseradish, in raw apple cider vinegar (often the classic Bragg, but she’s also used some from local producer also Nana Mae’s) for 2 to 4 weeks. “Many people bury their jars underground for a full moon cycle to imbue it with the earth’s rhythms,” explains Haynes, “I just leave mine on the countertop and then strain when it’s ready.” 

Although Haynes suggests a daily dose of fire cider to stave off the common cold, she also recommends a shot before meals for digestion. Scott Clark of Dad’s Lunchonette, a Cal-American cafe housed in an historic train caboose along Highway 1 in Half Moon Bay, California, certainly uses fire cider in a more culinary manner too. As he writes in his upcoming cookbook, Coastal, Clark only found fire cider about a decade ago while tasting through the Little Apple Treats stall at Ferry Building Farmers Market.

“I have an affinity for painfully sharp things to drink,” admits Clark, “I love an abrasive kick in the ass.” When developing his own fire cider recipe for his forthcoming book, Coastal, he wanted it to be “the most hair-on-the-chest, mouth-pucking beverage” but has since scaled it back a bit with the addition of honey, for something more widely approachable—though, it’s still an “acidic jolt”.

His cookbook refers to fire cider as a “pre-surf” option, one that helps get him loose for riding waves, but he also likes it as a mignonette for roasted oysters (recipe follows).

Recently, I noticed that one of my favorite food photographers, Andrea Gentl, blogged about her own expeirences with fire cider – one that combines her local upstate New York’s terroir with Oaxacan wanderlust, adding in ingredients like dried rosehips and sumac. While apple cider vinegar is still at the core, the construction of your own creation comes can best suit your taste and needs. Famed vegan chef Gaz Oakley, Whitney Johnson (The Appalachian Forager) and homesteader Rohini Elyse alike, have all come attune to fire cider’s wonders, which goes to show you should probably get your batch going before winter is over!