Shrubs Workshop

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

I attended a shrubs and kombucha workshop held by my department the other weekend. I'll talk about the kombucha at a later time, but today it's all about the shrubs! Shrubs are basically a fruity-vinegar-y drink syrup (heavy emphasis on vinegar). Mixed with some sparkling water, you basically make your own fruity sodas without a soda-making-machines. The organizer of the workshop prefers non-cooked shrub methods for a more vivid flavor, which means you basically just macerate fresh fruits with some sugar, strain the seeds/skins out, then add the vinegar. It comes out pretty tasty, if you like the taste of apple cider vinegar.

The recipes we used came from Cocktail 101: How to Make Shrub Syrups (Serious Eats) Blueberry Ginger Shrub from FoodInJars...although I also added a split vanilla bean to one of my jars of raspberry shrub. We'll see how that turns out.

There's all kinds of hippie benefits to drinking apple cider vinegar, so maybe it's worth occasionally getting over any oppositions to the taste.