Blackberry Shrub Soda
A blackberry and apple-cider-vinegar syrup lengthened with soda over ice. The colonial 'drinking vinegar' revived — tart, fruity, fizzy, and the best alcohol-free thing you can make in a jar.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Make the shrub a day ahead: muddle a cup of blackberries with a cup of sugar, cover, and leave in the fridge overnight until the sugar has drawn out the juice. Stir in half a cup of apple cider vinegar, strain, and bottle. It keeps for months.
Fill a collins glass with ice.
Add an ounce and a half of the shrub.
Top with cold soda, stir once, and garnish with blackberries and a mint sprig.
A thoughtful finish
- Cold-process the shrub, as above, rather than cooking it. Heat dulls the fruit; a night in the fridge keeps it bright.
- Taste the shrub before using it. If it is too sharp, add a little sugar; if too sweet, a splash more vinegar. It should make you pucker slightly.
- The same shrub with an ounce and a half of gin or bourbon is a complete cocktail.
Common mistakes
- Distilled white vinegar. It is harsh; apple cider or white wine vinegar is the recipe.
- Too much shrub in the glass. It is concentrated; an ounce and a half to four of soda is right.
- Boiling the fruit, which cooks away what you are trying to capture.
A few good questions.
What is a shrub?
A syrup of fruit, sugar and vinegar, used as a drink base. The vinegar preserves the fruit and provides the acid that citrus would in a cocktail.
Does it taste of vinegar?
It tastes tart and bright, the way lemonade does, with a faint vinegar note underneath. It should not taste like salad dressing; if it does, add sugar.
How long does a shrub keep?
Months in the fridge. The vinegar and sugar together are an excellent preservative; that was the point.
Can I use other fruit?
Almost any: raspberries, strawberries, peaches, cherries, rhubarb. Firm fruit may need a day or two longer to macerate.
Variations
- Cranberry Rosemary Spritz — Cranberry and rosemary over soda.
- Virgin Mojito — Lime, mint, sugar and soda.
- Bramble — Gin, lemon and blackberry liqueur — the spirited cousin.
- Virgin Paloma — Grapefruit, lime and soda with a salt rim.
Where it comes from
c. 1700s; revived 2010s · England and colonial America
A shrub is a fruit syrup preserved with vinegar — the word is from the Arabic sharab, a drink — and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was how fruit was kept through the winter and turned into a drink: shrub and water, shrub and rum. It faded with refrigeration and came back in the 2010s, when bartenders rediscovered that vinegar does what citrus does in a drink — adds acid and brightness — while keeping for months. The blackberry shrub is the easiest and the best-coloured, and over soda it is a soft drink that tastes like something.
Sources
- Michael Dietsch, Shrubs: An Old-Fashioned Drink for Modern Times, 2014 (book)
- Julia Bainbridge, Good Drinks, 2020 (book)
- David Wondrich, Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl, 2010 (book)
A little character in every sip.
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