Do you know what the heck a shrub is? I sure didn’t, but once I tasted it, I was IN! It’s the healthiest, tastiest drink mixer ever! Good for kid or adult beverages, if you get my drift!

Last year at one of the barter’s I held, someone showed up with these tiny bottles labeled with awesome flavors like lemon pineapple and strawberry vanilla!  The samples were divine and after we finished with our bottle I promptly forgot all about a shrub!  But when I had ALL the strawberries sitting in the kitchen I remembered and got to figuring out how to make it!

So what is a shrub?  Well it is kind of like a syrup but vinegar based.  Sweet like fruit but tart from apple cider vinegar.  It’s very unique and satisfies those sweet cravings but don’t leave a sticky over sugared aftertaste.

It only have 3 simple ingredients and takes pretty much NO time.

I have a few recipes using shrub to share later, but to start off we really enjoy it with bubbly water over ice.  You don’t need much!

Yield: It varies

Strawberry Shrub

Print

Get your shrub on! 

Prep Time 15 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 Cups chopped berries or other fruit.
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 cups vinager- I used a mix of apple cider vin and super strong kombucha

Instructions

1. Chop up the berries, use the bruised, ugly, ones this is a perfect recipe for them!
2. In a bowl mix the berries and sugar.  Give it a good mix so all the sugar is mixed in.  The berries will start to juice and soon it will be a mushy mix.  
3. Let the bowl sit covered in the fridge for a few hours to a few days.  I went on vacation and left mine for a week, whoops!  But it was fine!
4. Check your bowl, are the berries floating in lots of juice?  Perfect!  Strain the berries into a jar or other vessel.  Really push as much through the sieve as you can.  I worked at the berries smashing them and sugar through the sieve for about 5 min.
5. Add the 2 cups vinegar and berry juice to a jar.  Shake well.  The jar will have undissolved sugar in it, that’s fine.
6. Store in the fridge and shake every once in a while until the sugar is dissolved.
7. It will be done in a about 2 days!

Notes

Serve in drinks like you would a syrup or other strongly flavored ingredient. Tastes great in a gin an tonic! 

Helpful Equipment- Medium bowl, glass jar, sieve

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  Sieve

 Worried about all that white sugar?  This is how it was explained to me!

When a shrub ages, it is like an ecosystem. The ambient yeast (yeast on the fruit itself and yeast from the air) turns the sugar into alcohol, and the acetobacter (the bacteria in unpasteurized vinegar) turns the alcohol into more vinegar. Eventually this will stabilize and not turn the whole shrub into fruit vinegar since the bacteria-induced pH change will stall out the yeast’s fermentation process (and thus the bacteria’s acetic acid-producing pathway). – Source

I sincerely hope you enjoy this strawberry shrub recipe, it’s pure, fruity, summer in a glass.

Cheers,

Heather

P.S. Looking for other fun real food drinks? Try my probiotic pina colada!

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