Producer Profile … Wild Mother
We’re wild about Wild Mother. You should be too. Read on to find out why this Tassie-made apple cider vinegar deserves a place in your pantry.
The Hill Street team caught up with craft vinegar producer Dr Tim Jones at Hill Street’s Producer’s Night late last year. He’s a passionate maker, committed to using Tasmanian produce in a uniquely sustainable way in his new business, Wild Mother.
Wild Mother produces minimal intervention, unfiltered and unpasteurised vinegars from apples and cherries grown very few miles away from their operations in the Huon Valley. Aside from using wonderful local fruit, Tim imbues his vinegars with flavours of bourbon, port and whisky by aging them in old barrels. Tim has a focus on minimising and using waste wherever possible and even his casks are reused from Tasmania distillers.
Tim is no stranger to the world of fermentation. A scientist and geneticist, his early years were spent as cider maker at Cascade Brewery after some time with Carlton and United Breweries and Yalumba. He then joined Willie Smith’s as head cider maker in 2014, spending six years fashioning award-winning ciders from heirloom English and French cider apple varieties.
Tim was introduced to French vinegars by his Brittany-born wife Sophie. He began seeing more vinegars and vinegar-like products turning up in bars and food retailers and could see an opportunity, there being few craft vinegar makers in the market. The kombucha craze appeared to have conditioned people’s palates and the healthful benefits of fermented products were being recognised. Tim embarked on a quest to create vinegars similar to those he tasted in Europe. These were flavourful and wholesome, full-bodied vinegars which reflected the fruit they were made from.
Tim now produces a range of craft vinegars in a traditional two step ferment. The first converts the sugars in the fruit into alcohol. Then the next step is an aerobic ferment by the addition of the vinegar ‘mother’ which converts the alcohol into acetic acid.
Wild Mother’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar is an unfiltered, unpasteurised apple cider vinegar made with certified organic apples grown by R & R Smith in the Huon Valley. Tim says it fills the gap in the market, being the only locally-made, high-quality organic craft apple cider vinegar and is a healthful vinegar perfect for daily consumption. It makes an excellent vinaigrette.
Tim’s Black Cherry Vinegar is made with Tasmanian cherries, hundreds of tonnes of which are otherwise directed to landfill due to their failure to make the strict grading requirements of international export. This is due to small cracks or other imperfections; the cherries are otherwise high quality and brimming with sweetness and goodness. They produce a fruity, full-bodied vinegar great for salads and can be used in the same way as a red wine vinegar.
Wild Mother has also produced some premium small-batch barrel-aged apple cider vinegars: Bourbon Cask aged for four years, Tasmanian Whisky Cask aged between one and three years, and Barossa Port Cask aged for three years. Due to their time in the cask these vinegars have a unique complexity which lends itself to basting and deglazing, use in dressings and as a condiment with seafood – Tim recommends splashing natural Tasmanian oysters with some of the Bourbon Cask for a flavour sensation.
Aside from his vinegars Tim has a maple syrup created from a friends’ excess stock of syrup, which he then aged in small Overeem Distillery single-malt whisky casks. This has imparted an intense flavour to the maple syrup to produce rich notes of toffee, vanilla bean and toasted oak.
Always interested in finding new ways for people to consume vinegars, Tim has recently launched a Raspberry, White Tea and Organic Apple Cider Vinegar Shrub. It’s a non-alcoholic aperitif syrup made with 50% raspberries from the Derwent Valley, delicious mixed one part to six with soda, on ice, or as a flavour-burst base for cocktails.
You can find Wild Mother’s range in all Hill Street stores and online here (for southern customers) and here (for northern customers).
