Recipe Used For All Three Shrub Techniques
- 1 Cup Vinegar (Apple Cider Vinegar in this case)
- 1 Cup Refined White Sugar
- 1.25 Cups Strawberries
Techniques Used:
1. Hot Vinegar
Boil the vinegar and add it to the strawberries. Let it cool down and refrigerate for 24 hours. Then separate the liquid from the solids, and add sugar.
2. Cold
Bathe the strawberries in sugar to actually let the sugar extract all the flavors. Allow it to pull the water out of the strawberries for at least 4 hours, preferably for 24 hours, then remove solids and add vinegar.
3. Ninja Fast
Get down and dirty and throw it all in a blender! Let it sit for a few days to allow the flavors to really integrate.
Final Outcome:
Hot Vinegar
The hot vinegar technique had the best results when it came to color extraction, and flavor balance. The vinegar was in good balance with the sugar and fruit flavor, and seemed to be one of the easiest techniques. The strawberries themselves had a candied, almost Laffy Taffy (candy from my childhood) quality to it.
Cold Extraction
The cold extraction technique produced a shrub that was a little too vinegar forward for my taste. More time will help to take the edge off, but I would recommend a much mellower vinegar base than apple cider vinegar. Balsamic vinegar is a great companion to strawberries. Champagne, wine or other fruit based vinegar are great choices to experiment with. With the cold extraction method, the fresh fruit quality was the focus of the shrub, with a little re-balancing, I feel like this will be my preferred technique for shrubs.
Ninja fast
This was more of an experiment than anything. I was hoping to find a lightning fast technique for shrub production, but what I ended up with was essentially a vinegar based smoothie. It was worth a try, but the shrub turned out to be much cloudier and thick than the previous shrubs, and the product itself was very unbalanced.
Shrubs are a great way to preserve seasonal flavors and incorporate them into cocktails. The possibilities for flavor combinations are endless, have fun experimenting.
Here’s our Recipe for the Strawberry Shrub:
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup vinegar-I used apple cider, but any fruit or wine based vinegar is a good choice. Balsamic is another great choice. Stay away from White distilled, it’s acid is way too sharp and will be nearly impossible to mellow.
- 1.25 cups of sliced strawberries
- Patience…….lots of patience
Instructions:
1. Hot Vinegar
Boil the vinegar and add it to the strawberries. Let it cool down and separate the solids from the liquids. Let it sit for a while to bring out the flavors then introduce the sugar.
2. Cold
Bathe the strawberries in sugar to actually let the sugar extract all the flavors. After that, add in the vinegar.
3. Ninja Fast
Get down and dirty and throw it all in a blender! Let it sit to let the flavors marry each other.
Do you have other techniques in making a shrub? Let us know!
Hi, a little question. Why didn’t you add the sugar right away in the ‘hot vinegar’ method. Greetings Vitas.
Actually Vitas that is a good question. I will have to investigate this further to see if there is any difference. If you beat me to it, let me know if you can tell any difference.
Hi Chirs,
When heated the acetic acid from the vinegar will evaporate making for a better smell, then heating the vinegar before adding it to the cold infusion method can bring the balace.
This cold method is also a great and easy method to make berry syrups without having those cooked notes.
Saúde!
Evaporation of the acetic acid would make a lot of sense in the way that the resulting shrubs had a much different taste profile. Thanks for the comment Thaigo.
Great video, you guys! I love that you tested these three different shrub methods – it’s amazing how differently each turned out. Chris’s descriptions of the differences are so vivid, too. I’ve made shrubs using the cold technique, so I’m curious to try heating the vinegar first next time. Thanks!
Thanks Alanna,
Let me know which works better for you. BTW I love your flavor combinations. Your honey kumquat and lavender shrub looks amazing. Hard to beat a pastry chef when it comes to flavor combinations.
Wow, what a sweet compliment – thank you! I wish I could make my drinks blend as seamlessly as you mixologists. I will keep you posted on the shrub…ery. 🙂
How long can you hold one of these shrubs for? I made one a few weeks back, I assume the vinegar and sugar will keep the fruit infusion from going bad for quite some time, I am aware that shrubs were originally used as a preservation technique. I am just wondering if the flavour will greatly change after two weeks or upwards of a month or two even.
Hey Brent,
Great question. From what I have read, the shrub should be good for up to a year. As far as the flavor changing, we have never had shrub on hand long enough to notice a change on the flavor. I still have the shrub we made for this video, so I will taste over the next few weeks and let you know if there has been any substantial changes.