Spikehorn Press publishes distinctive, high-quality non-fiction books to honor and instruct in traditions and innovations in craft and living. Each title seeks to bring curious innovators to higher levels of skill and understanding, or present a modern or ingenious twist on a time-honored subject.
Our latest title!
Vinegar, the Eternal Condiment
In this exhaustive work artisanal vinegar maker Reginald Smith does what no one has done before, brought together the arching, global history of vinegar. Covering the natural history of this much-beloved condiment, scientific developments around the world, and the commerce side of its manufacture and trade, simple vinegar will never be the same again.
Ditching the Drive-Thru
“Natalie, who doesn’t have a house full of gourmet foodie magazines, brings a fresh perspective to the better-dining conundrum. Under her practical tutelage, excuses fall away . . . one by one.”
— Joel Salatin, author and featured farmer in The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Food, Inc.
The Artisan’s Guide to Crafting Distilled Spirits
“A resource that everyone – beginner or advanced – interest in the craft distilling process needs.”
— Bill Owens, president/founder, American Distilling Institute
Vinegar, the Eternal Condiment
“Vinegar’s story was concurrently written around the world, and this book captures that special history.”
— Professor Paolo Giudici (ret.), University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Writings from our editors . . .

Considering Shop Class as Soulcraft
Americans, in general, have an unyielding faith in our collective ability to fix it. Fix anything. Fix everything. The topic of repair is an interesting one. In fact, it’s almost a novelty. Our planned-obsolescence, toss-don’t-fix society is severely lacking in repairmen. High school shop classes were by and large shuttered in the 1990s. Liability risks […]

A Kind of Revival . . .
“Of late years, however, a kind of revival has been going on, as a protest against the conviction that, with all our modern mechanical achievements, comforts, and luxuries, life is growing “uglier every day,” as Mr. [William] Morris puts it. Even our painters are driven to rely rather on the accidental beauty which, like a struggling […]

A New Generation of Enlightenment
In the grocery store the other day we spied two young boys, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, reading the ingredients panel of a package of sugar-frosted, cream-filled dessert cakes bearing some ludicrous name from a decade gone by. Perhaps years ago they would have dug into their pockets for the coins to buy them, but […]
Vinegar Making’s Long History
Vinegar is among those products that were not invented but rather discovered by chance. As long as alcoholic drinks like beer and wine have existed, vinegar has formed—at first on its own, purely inadvertently—when these drinks were left standing. With no knowledge of how to preserve beer and wine, storing them long-term inevitably produces vinegar. […]