Drinking Shrub
A colonial-era fruit vinegar syrup — seasonal berries macerated in sugar until their juices run free, then aged with apple cider vinegar for a week into a tangy, complex drinking concentrate that wakes up sparkling water or cocktails alike.
Ingredients
For 4 servings · tick what is ready
Use the scaled ingredient list. Steps and temperatures stay unchanged; use a larger pan or dish if needed. Seasonings to taste stay to taste.
How to make it
Combine berries and sugar in a clean glass jar. Add any aromatics — a sprig of rosemary or a few cracked peppercorns work beautifully with strawberries. Stir, cover loosely, and leave at room temperature for 24-48 hours. The sugar draws moisture out of the fruit through osmosis, creating a vivid, intensely flavored syrup as the fruit begins to collapse.
Pour the macerated fruit through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean jar, pressing the fruit to extract every drop of syrup. Discard the spent fruit pulp (or use in baking). You want only the vivid, concentrated liquid. You should have roughly 150-200 ml of syrup.
Stir vinegar into the fruit syrup in the jar until combined. Seal and refrigerate for 5-7 days, shaking once daily. The rest period is essential — the harsh raw edge of the vinegar integrates with the fruit syrup and rounds out into something harmonious and complex. Taste after 5 days. Serve 2 tbsp per glass topped with sparkling water over ice.
About this recipe
By ForkRecipe Kitchen · Source: ForkRecipe / FoodML and contributors. Recipe content available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Serving count is an estimate; check quantities in the source recipe.