Gargoyle, I think you are confusing bad wine with "three day old, good wine, darn I wish I had drunk that before it got a little past its prime" wine. I am not talking of using rotgut wine, or wasting wine that is perfectly drinkable, but sometimes a half bottle ends up being allocated to cooking wine because it just got a little past its prime before finished. THe fact is, after about a week it is not really good enough to cook with, off to the vinegar crock. After a party, the little remains that were not consumed, off to the vinegar crock. Anyway, so far it is producing absolutely wonderful deep red wine vinegar and it is essentially on autopilot from here.

Brucie, I will arrange some special muscatel vinegar for you. As soon as I find a plastic bag and a suitable cardboard container.

Big Pink Lad...you really got me thinking about the botulism thing. I found a site that suggests you heat the vinegar to almost boiling prior to bottling to prevent this nasty bug from being in the vinegar. I guess I still have a lot to learn about this and , no, I have no visions of providing this commercially.

As mentioned before, though If anyone is interested in a starter, I will be able to send one soon I think as this progresses. jimmyt