[1] The company was founded in 2012 in Bridgeport, Connecticut by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson, who created it to restore and distribute old X-rated films that were lost or otherwise unavailable.

Vinegar Syndrome has been compared to the Criterion Collection for its importance to "physical media and film preservation,"[2] as well as similarly garnering praise for high-quality home video offerings.

[14] In 2015, Vinegar Syndrome began developing a subscription-based, VOD-style streaming service called Skinaflix, described by Rubin as "Netflix for sex films, but curated for cinephiles".

[14] The service was discontinued on July 31, 2018, in order to allow Vinegar Syndrome to focus on its core operation of restoring and distributing films for physical home media.

[8] Despite not having access to any audio, storyboards, or scripts from the original production, Vinegar Syndrome reconstructed the film using a new director, Kurtis M. Spieler, and dubbed dialogue recorded by such actors as Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Michael Berryman, and Cynthia Rothrock.

[18] Intended to "fill gaps in the canon of American cinema", the first two releases under the label were announced for pre-order in January 2024: a 4K/Blu-ray combo pack of Little Darlings[19] and a Blu-ray of Red Rock West.