Serial entrepreneur and investor Scott Friedmann promised his family he wouldn’t launch another startup. But then he started to experiment with acid.
Growing a range of fermentation trials in his basement with his culinary-inclined teenage son led Friedmann to wonder if there was space for an “all things acid”-focused brand in the market. (Think: vinegar made with piña colada beer and the family’s backyard honey.) It was serendipitous when a friend introduced him to food scientists—and now cofounders—Cole Pearsall and Allan Mai, and the three bonded over the possibilities.
Officially launched in 2020, one year after that initial meetup, Toronto-based Acid League offers a range of vinegar-based products, with a new release introduced weekly. Acid League debuted alongside fellow clever startups on the vinegar spectrum, including apple cider vinegar-powered prebiotic beverages from Poppi and specialty culinary vinegars from Ramp Up and TART. But Acid League stands out on its own by offering a bit of everything: living vinegar, experimental micro-batch vinegar, condiments, pickled products, shrubs, and what it calls Proxies, herbaceous nonalcoholic beverages inspired by zero-proof pairings at Noma restaurant in Copenhagen (a fellow pioneer in the fermentation space).
I’m basic, so I made salad dressing with Garden Heat. It’s deliciously tingly, a tiny bit sweet, and adds a kick to an otherwise boring bowl of butter lettuce, cucumbers, and radishes. I drizzled a bit on fish tacos in place of hot sauce for addictively tangy heat. I suspect it would be great with fish and chips, though Friedmann mentions a soon-to-drop Smoked Malt that would probably be even better.
Friedmann considers the vinegar category to be ripe for disruption—with so much more variation possible beyond the Italian balsamic and apple cider vinegar products that dominate the grocery aisle. He likens Acid League’s approach to Ben & Jerry’s, taking a beloved household product and extending it to experimental flavors and receptacles. Currently, Acid League’s lab has “north of 150” acid-based experiments going at a time, and it’s able to muster on through COVID-19, as food is an essential service.
Friedmann and his team of food scientists are now experimenting with derivatives of umeboshi, Japanese pickled plums, using a variety of stone fruits and coffee-infused shrubs. The core collection and product categories will continue to evolve as Acid League discovers its consumer, but I asked if any variables have always remained the same.
Meyer Lemon Honey Vinegar is a core product that hearkens back to the Friedmann family’s original experiments during the summer Acid League was born. “You can put it in a lemon meringue pie,” he says. My mind is blown.
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