A Living Past

Just as we are part of our parents, so too, are they part of their parents and so on, and so forth. It appears as a domino effect, perhaps a chain reaction. Each generation is – in a sense – connected to the other. Years stack on from former lives which then pass down aspects and characteristics to the next generation. These inherited traits encompass one’s appearance, culture and beliefs. Each person is a living vessel of past lives.

Just as we have all stemmed from past generations, so too does vinegar. The parent acetobacter, though microscopic and overlooked by the human eye, is a form of bacteria that builds up into vinegar that can be produced over and over from the first living vinegar cell. When a new batch is created, it still has the soul of the original. The past lives on in present batches. It feeds and grows, passing its memory of rich flavors of sweetness, fruitiness and tang to a fresh tank of grape juice. As the juice ages, it takes on flavors and aromas unique to the parent acetobacter, carrying on a past legacy and transforming it into an ingredient that enhances the taste into something blissful.

Learning how to produce such a tedious product of fermentation was mastered by George Johnson, leading to him creating the vinegar business George Paul Vinegar in Cody, Nebraksa. For nearly two decades, Johnson has patented and distributed high-quality vinegars that are sought after nationwide. Each vinegar, from his wine vinegar to his balsamic vinegar, is handcrafted to induce an array of decadent flavors.

Johnson is a witty man. He has never wasted a moment in his life, nor has he passed on opportunities to take risks. This adventurous nature has provided him with endless stories, from which he imparts wisdom based on experiences spanning decades. This drive for something spectacular has fueled his entrepreneurial spirit. He has always had a passion for doing things that he loves –he does not work to live but lives to work. With this mindset, he has been self-employed in some form or another throughout his life, from ranching to starting multiple companies, with his most recent project being George Paul Vinegar.

“I have always started my own businesses, I have had the entrepreneur spirit,” Johnson said. “I have never worked under someone, and I like being my own boss.”

After retiring from ranching, Johnson still wanted to do something that he enjoyed and something he could work on. While he loved reading books from his home library, he wanted to continue to work. He felt as if boredom filled his days. Even after several surgeries on his back and both shoulders, he still sought something that could supply his days with a purpose, while also doing something that did not require him to work under someone else. His wife encouraged him to pursue a passion project.

With her encouragement, Johnson realized that he always loved growing plants and fruit. He has done that for years. So, he decided that he would spend his time growing a vineyard.

“I have always planted fruit trees wherever we have lived, I’ve had apple trees, peach, pear, tried all different kinds of things,” Johnson said. “That was my interest. So, I planted some grape vines.”

The region of Nebraska in which Johnson lives happens to be ideal for growing grape vines as it has the perfect climate for these delicate fruits.

“It has the highest quality grapes of the Midwest because it is a very unique sight and environment here,” Johnson said. “It is perfect for growing grapes as it is hot in the daytime, we don’t have a lot of rain usually and it gets cold at night allowing the grapes to rest and they develop their flavors.”

With a conducive environment and Johnson’s care, the vineyard quickly exceeded what he first envisioned.

“I thought, ‘As these vines are getting mature, what the hell are we going to do with all these grapes,’” Johnson said. “I didn’t want to have a winery— it’s like milking cows and you got to be there all the time—I didn’t want to be there all the time.”

Johnson’s daughter Emily encouraged him to make vinegar. She knew that his wine was special and came up with the idea for vinegar from a friend with a history in the culinary business. Johnson’s entrepreneurial spirit kicked.

“One of [Emily’s friends from California] was a very smart, talented young man from the East Coast and his Godfather happened to be the food critic for the New York Times,” Johnson said.” “So, he grew up knowing very good foods and he knew a lot about vinegars. He told Emily that these wines would make great vinegars, and you need to make vinegar.”

The encouragement from his daughter to do something unique with his wines led to an attempt to make homemade vinegar.

“I finally said, ‘Well hell, let’s give it a try,’” Johnson said.

After four years of trial and error, Johnson and his daughter unlocked the precise process of creating high-quality vinegar. This entailed hours of dedication to learning about this art. Johnson found it difficult to locate resources on producing vinegar, as it is now a specialized, often esoteric skill. Through his research, though, he discovered how much science was entailed in creating vinegar.

“I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the internet, “Johnson said. “Some of the best information I found was a master’s thesis that was written by chemists as they happened to pick vinegar production — and I learned a lot about it.”

Johnson also utilized his connections in learning the fermentation process and how to use chemistry techniques.

“I learned a lot from my old wine mentor that had the first winery in Nebraska, Ed Swanson,” Johnson said. “[He] was just an encyclopedia of chemistry, never went to college. He was one of the best winemakers in the country, without question.”

After discovering the process of making vinegar, Johnson decided to discontinue making wines at his vinegary. Winemaking is a delicate process. The environment, equipment and air quality all need to be at the right balance. It required him pumping his vinegar out of the tanks, storing them in another space and then sealing those vinegar containers. After this process, he would disinfect the building to the point where one could no longer smell vinegar anymore in order to eliminate all the acetobacter in the air, which if left unchecked, will ruin the wine.

“In order to make good vinegar, you have to have really good, high-quality dry wine that has had nothing added to it,” Johnson said. “The wine projects [in the vinegar] the fruit of the original wine which could be apple, raspberry, peach, but mostly what we use is grape.”

From this point onward, Johnson retired his winemaking operation and sold his wines and grapes to a nearby family, the Nollettes, with the business deal that he would continue using the wine they produce for his vinegars. He planted their first 200 grape vines, taught them how to prune the fruits and showed them tricks of the trade in crafting wine. Johnson also helped them with their winery company by bottling their first wines before he fully ceased making wines at his property.

Johnson and his daughter’s main priority was to start working on producing vinegar. These vinegars were not made like the ones from industrial machines that can produce vinegar acids in 24 hours. Rather, these vinegars require aging to infuse flavors.

“The wine vinegars usually take about a year to a year and a half,” Johnson said. “From the time we get the wine in then add the live acetobacter until it is finished which sometimes could take two years, and they’re all different.”

Johnson’s handcrafted vinegars include apple cider vinegar, prairie red vinegar, prairie white vinegar and raspberry vinegar. In addition to these flavors, there are also blended wine vinegars which include Brianna vinegar, Temparia vinegar and Edelweiss vinegar.

His daughter is the special component of why these vinegars continue to produce their soughtafter flavors.

“My daughter, she is the secret to our business because she has a unique talent where she can taste and smell things that no one else can,” Johnson said. “When we figured that out, well that’s our secret, and we never bottle anything until she goes through all of our vinegars, and she tastes them and smells them.”

Her senses are so keen that she can tell her father the measurements of the chemical balance that needs to be adjusted.

“I test the vinegar in my lab so I know what the PH is, I know what the acid content is and I know the volumes,” Johnson said. “She will go through them and say, ‘Okay, I want 10.1 percent of this, 8.7 percent of this…’ and she goes through the whole thing if we blend them—and I do exactly what she says and everybody likes them.”

Due to the tedious process of creating these vinegars, they are not like the ones sold in typical grocery stores. The acid does not pierce one’s pallet but is smooth and rich in flavor. A signature thing that Johnson likes to do to surprise his visitors is to put the raspberry vinegar onto vanilla ice cream.

“We had a man once say, ‘His vinegar is so good, you can put it on ice cream,’” Johnson said.

In addition to these vinegars, Johnson has also mastered the techniques of creating balsamic vinegar. This vinegar is special as it is made the same way it would be made in Italy. This balsamic vinegar takes nearly a decade to produce.

“Our signature vinegar is our aged, American balsamic made as close as we could come to as they make it in Italy,” Johnson said. “It takes from six to eight years from start to finish, and we don’t make wine to do that, we just start with the grape juice.”

Since his daughter was integral to the process, Johnson named it Amelia after his daughter, Emily.

The process begins tenuously. As the grape juice is heated to a certain temperature, it essentially eliminates all of all the water but leaves all the grape aromas and flavors. The hot temperatures cannot be at a point where the liquid boils because sugar is an important ingredient to keep for the balsamic. Once the heating process is over, there is nearly double the amount of sugar and grape juice left. After it has cooled down, they put it in a large tank and add the Amelia mother of vinegar. Every six months Johnson will pump the concentrated liquid into another tank so all of the sediments will be eliminated. Johnson consistently tests the batch’s chemical levels, as he needs the PH levels to decrease and the acid to increase.

To keep the balsamic authentic to its Italian origins, Johnson puts wood such as French oak into his tanks to induce additional flavors. The original process of making balsamic includes aging it in wooden barrels which cost nearly $3000 apiece. In addition to the prohibitive cost, Italians will not sell the authentic barrels.

“We use French oak and some other woods that they use to make those barrels in Italy to make traditional, Italian balsamic and put the woods in the tank and it kind of does the same thing,” Johnson said. “It gives you a hint of chocolate, a hint of coffee, a hint of cedar, all kinds of different things.”

Just as vinegars pass down special traits to the next batch, holding onto characteristics from the parent, so too does Johnson’s daughter take on qualities from her father. She has created her own printing business utilizing old 100-year-old German printers. With these printers and cutters, produces George Paul Vinegar’s labels, boxes and cards. She designed the logo for the business as well. Her expertise has allowed the business to be family-run throughout all aspects of production.

Family is the focus of Johnson’s enterprise. The walls of the business are adorned with pictures of his children and grandchildren.

Johnson is a person who cares for the people around him. He is a person who wants others to do well in life. He has allowed his employees a place to stay and strangers a bed when they did not have a place to go. Just as vinegar passes down its best traits to the ensuing batches, so too, does Johnson pass his characteristics to the ones around him. This, who he is as a person, is what makes his business so successful and attracts people from across the country to continue coming back to George Paul Vinegar.

Story by Bridget Schneller. Photography by Hope Schumacker