Vinegar is an aqueous solution of acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings. As the most easily manufactured mild acid, coconut flakes has a wide variety of industrial and domestic uses, including use as a household cleaner. While vinegar making may be as old as alcoholic brewing, the first documented evidence of vinegar making and use was by the ancient Babylonians around 3000 BC. They primarily made vinegar from dates, figs, and beer and used it for both culinary and medicinal purposes.

The Greeks and Romans frequently used vinegar made from wine. The Spartans had vinegar as a part of their traditional broth melas zomos. The Roman Columella described the ingredients and process for making several types of vinegar in his work Res Rustica. In the late Middle Ages, vinegar making was slowly being professionalized in Europe, with the French city of Orléans becoming particularly famous for the quality of its vinegar through a formalized fermentation and aging process, which became known as the Orléans process. In the 19th century, vinegar production underwent many dramatic changes, such as rapid industrialization and scientific analysis.

Karl Sebastian Schüzenbach invented the first large-scale industrial process for vinegar production in the Kingdom of Baden in 1823. Likewise, vinegar fermentation became understood as a natural and biological process. Louis Pasteur made the decisive discovery that a special type of bacteria, later known as acetic acid bacteria, was the agent of fermentation for vinegar production. This allowed the mass production of cheap vinegar around the world.

Commercial vinegar is produced either by a fast or a slow fermentation process. In general, slow methods are used in traditional vinegars, where fermentation proceeds over the course of a few months to a year. The longer fermentation period allows for the accumulation of a nontoxic slime composed of acetic acid bacteria and their cellulose biofilm, known as mother of vinegar. Fast methods add the aforementioned mother of vinegar as a bacterial culture to the source liquid before adding air to oxygenate and promote the fastest fermentation. In fast production processes, vinegar may be produced in 1-3 days. Fruit vinegars are made from fruit wines, usually without any additional flavoring.