The Worst Apple Cider Vinegar Brand, According To Our Taste Test

Between its preservation powers, cleaning capabilities, and ability to balance a salty flavor in greens, apple cider vinegar may well be the ultimate household staple. Its long and successful history spans the globe, allowing each apple cider vinegar brand to sell a story along with the fermented juice. When our Tasting Table taste tester, Hayley Hamilton Cogill, evaluated 11 apple cider vinegar brands, she included their backgrounds and, of course, the taste of each bottle, ultimately leading to one particular brand at the bottom of our ranking: Sadaf.

Sadaf's apple cider vinegar ranked last because it was seemingly not what it purported to be. Its website states that the vinegar is unfiltered and unpasteurized, suggesting that the juice retains "the mother." Yet, its clear, untainted nature indicated otherwise. If you're wondering what a vinegar mother is, it's a cloudy deposit of friendly bacteria floating in the vinegar or settled at the bottom. Sadaf's product had none of that. This implies that it was filtered, which also increases the chances of the apple cider vinegar being pasteurized.

Equally inadequate was the taste of Sadaf's product. The flavor was mediocre and typical of filtered apple cider vinegars, lacking the raw essence that enriches the juice. To make matters worse, this brand's vinegar was three times more expensive than higher-ranking brands like Great Value at the time of tasting, and the latter had a brighter flavor in comparison to Sadaf's.

It might be slimy and stringy, but the mother in apple cider vinegar (ACV) is where the good stuff resides. Its murky presence is a clear sign of a less-refined product, so if you prefer organic food, you'll appreciate this version. Sadaf's claims of an unfiltered product seem somewhat deceptive, as unrefined, organic ACV often garners more attention for its nutritious profile.

This is because the presence of the mother is the main difference between filtered and unfiltered apple cider vinegar. The slippery mat that forms is a colony of bacteria, similar to the symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast found in kombucha, aka SCOBY, and translates into probiotics that promote good gut health. Enzymes in the mother help break down food, allowing your body to absorb nutrients more readily. These benefits can be found in both filtered and unfiltered ACV, but may be more concentrated in the latter.

ACV which contains the mother also helps to initiate the process of making a new batch of vinegar, offering a quick method of fermentation. This gives brands like Bragg, which do contain that clever collection of bacteria, an edge. You can keep the mother once the vinegar runs out and introduce it into a fresh batch of cider for another fermentation cycle. In terms of taste, the mother adds complexity, found in our top-ranking White House brand, which is a quality that Sadaf's product ultimately lacked.

If you're struggling to find good-quality ACV in stores, there are various versions complete with mother online, like this 16 fluid ounce Bragg apple cider vinegar or this large bottle of our favorite White House brand.