If you’re feeling like your non-alcoholic beverage options always end up tasting like soda or juice, and you’re looking for something a little more… interesting, allow me to introduce you to the shrub.
What’s a shrub, you say?
Essentially, it’s a syrup made from roughly equal parts sugar, fruit and/or herbs, and vinegar. It evolved from medicinal cordials in 16th century Europe, and became pretty popular in the 17th and 18th centuries in England and America, primarily as a way of preserving fruit.
Also known as “drinking vinegars,” shrubs are typically mixed with water (still or sparkling), much like a homemade soda, or used as a mixer in cocktails. If you’re a fan of the tangy funk of a well-aged kombucha, a shrub may be just the thing for you.
How To Make It
There are lots of different methods for making shrubs, but they all involve the same ingredients — sugar, plant material, and vinegar.
The “hot method” is basically making a syrup flavored with fruit and/or herbs, then adding vinegar to it. A general rule of thumb is 1 pound of fruit simmered in 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water, then adding anywhere from 1/3 of a cup to a full cup of vinegar at the end. Some sources suggest adding the vinegar towards the end of simmering, before straining, while others prefer adding the vinegar to the finished, strained syrup.
The more common method, however, is the “cold method,” which is more like a proper fermentation. In this method, you combine the ingredients in a covered container, let them sit for anywhere from a day to a week, stirring occasionally, then strain out the solids.
The ingredients are the same — sugar, fruit, and vinegar, maybe some herbs or other plant material added for flavor. The standard ratio is 1 pound of fruit (which is about 2 cups chopped or mashed, depending on the fruit) to 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of vinegar, though you could play with that a little bit. Depending on the fruit, you want to slice it, mash it (or muddle it, if you want to be fancy about it), or even blend it so that it gets maximum contact with the sugar.
You could stir in the vinegar right away, or let the sugar work on the fruit first. Either way, you want to put it in a glass or plastic container with a lid, then let it sit in dark spot at room temperature at least overnight, ideally a couple of days, or up to a week. Every day, check in on it and give a gentle stir.
When you’re ready, stir in the vinegar if you didn’t at the beginning, and strain out the solids. Store it in a jar or squeeze bottle in the fridge (because we have modern ways of preserving food now), and make sure you label it!
Won’t It Go Bad Sitting Out?
No, it shouldn’t. You do want to be sensible and start with clean hands, clean equipment, and freshly washed or frozen fruit, but remember, this was a method for preserving fruit for centuries. The sugar and vinegar should keep any bad bacteria in check, thanks to the magic of the probiotics in the vinegar and the preservative power of sugar.
You could try using a sugar alternative, but you might find that whatever you’re using is just not sweet enough to stand up to the vinegar. Not only that, but sugar behaves differently than sugar-free sweeteners from a chemical perspective, and classic shrubs have been made with sugar for centuries. Personally, I have no experience with using a sugar alternative here, so I can’t really offer any advice.
Either way, keep an eye on it. If it gets fuzzy or smells really funky (and I mean rotten funky, not vinegar funky), maybe toss it and start over. It’s highly unlikely something would go wrong, but it’s not impossible.
How to Use It
Start with one part syrup to three parts still or sparkling water, or club soda. While you could theoretically use the syrup with a different liquid, like tea or another infusion, your shrub will have plenty of bold flavor on its own.
What Kind of Fruit to Use
Berries, stone fruits, apples, just about any fruit it a good choice here. Very tart fruits, like citrus or cranberries, might be best used as a flavoring agent and not necessarily the star. You could also add herbs, spices, or ginger. Much like a simple syrup, the sky is the limit with the creative possibilities.
As for the vinegar, apple cider vinegar is always a good choice, as well as most other vinegars. Distilled white vinegar might be a bit too sharp-tasting, but it would still work. And it’s worth noting that balsamic vinegar is very sweet, as far as vinegars go. Most readily available balsamic vinegars have sugar added to them as a shortcut to the aging process, but even a very nice, very expensive balsamic vinegar will be naturally sweet without any added sugar, so you might consider using just enough to get the flavor, but combining it with another vinegar to make up the volume.
If you want to experiment, start simple, with maybe just one or two components. Blackberry or raspberry shrubs are classics, but peach or mango would be good, too. Classic combinations are worth a try, too, like strawberries with balsamic vinegar, or cherries with lime zest.
If you happen to have a flavored simple syrup already hanging around, you might even just add a bit of vinegar to it, just to dip a toe into the world of the shrub. Start with at least 2 parts of syrup to 1 part vinegar, then top that with water or seltzer.
Pucker up! (Ha!)
