We Want A Shrubbery!

I'm a curious kind of guy. I've been told that I ask too many questions; just ask my fiancee. I just feel that there is a lot of information out there to be had. Why not try to grasp it? So, in my unquenchable thirst for knowledge, pun intended, I found shrubs. No. Not the shrubs that The Knights Who Say Ni want. These are shrubs that you can drink.

In this post, I am just going to show you the basics of shrubbing. I want you to develop your own fruit combinations and add your own spices and herbs if you wish.

Otherwise known as "drinking vinegars", shrubs essentially come in two forms, alcoholic and non alcoholic. Alcoholic shrubs most likely originated from the medicinal cordials of the 1500's or thereabout. They were another vehicle to medicate one's ailments back in the day. The non-alcoholic shrubs would be more closely related to canning fruit and preserves. The basic ingredients of the shrubs I'm referring to in this post are vinegar, fruit, some sort of sweetener and/or spices. If made well, they have a great balance between sweet and sour. As with anything that I do, I like to find ways to simplify recipes for you lazy bastards out there. So, this is it:

Ingredients:

16 oz Fresh Fruit (your choice) or frozen if you're REALLY lazy

2 cups White Refined Granulated Sugar (like Domino's)

Apple Cider Vinegar Unfiltered and Unpasteurized (Bragg's)

herbs and spices (optional)

Cut up your fruit into small cubes and add them to a bowl. If you are using small berries like blueberries, just press on them to get them to burst a bit. Pour the sugar on top and give it a good mixing until the sugar starts to coagulate and get stick with fruit just. Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and throw it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, give it a good stir again. You will

These are peaches in sugar - 2nd day

notice that the sugar is turning into a syrup with some residual sugar granules. This is good. Throw it in the fridge again. Stir it again later on that night. By the time you get to it the next day, most of the sugar should be dissolved. Filter out the fruit and pour the sugar syrup into a jar. Add an equal amount of vinegar to the syrup. Seal the jar & shake. If you wanted to add spices like cinnamon, clover, fresh elderflower, another fruit, this would be the time. A spice bag would be helpful. Let rest for another couple of days. Remove spice bag. If you still have some granulated sugar on the bottom, shake again until dissolved. Now you're ready to drink it! Shrubs should last several months. Due to the sugar and acid in the shrub, the flavors will get better as the weeks roll by.

You can try a sip straight up. It's pretty powerful and will induce a funny face with a involuntary shaking of the head. A fresh, delicious and fun way to enjoy your new shrub is to add it to club soda. 

These are not the shrubs you are looking for

Fill a Collins glass with ice.

Add 3/4 oz of Shrub

Top off with 5-6 oz Fever Tree Soda Water or Club soda

Gently stir.

In a cocktail developed by @BarstoolPhD:

Pyro In The Grove

1 1/4 oz Broker's Gin

1 oz Homemade Orange Curacao (Bol's or Ferrande is fine)

1/2 oz Strawberry Shrub

1/2 oz Aalborg Akvavit 

1/4 oz Ardbeg 10 year Islay Scotch (or any well peated Scotch)

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker.

Add ice and shake until your hand freezes.

Shake for a few more seconds.

Double Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with an orange peel with oils expressed over the cocktail. 

Drop orange peel into cocktail

The Great Gin Twist Adventure

I like cocktail parties. I like parties where we roast pigs. But, what I like the best is pig roast cocktail parties.

Saugatuck Craft Butchery  approached me a few days ago and asked if I wanted to supply the booze for their First Annual Pig on the Plaza event. It's a pig roast that originated as one of their butchery classes that turned into a bad ass event. Of course I would supply the booze! I don't want to talk about the beer or wine that we're serving. So, let's get right to the cocktail. The Gin Twist.

I've been thumbing through a cocktail book originally printed in 1902 by Farrow & Jackson called Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks. It was a marketing ploy by Farrow & Jackson, who manufactured tools and equipment for bars. Buy the book. It's pretty cool. Charlie Paul was the man who provided most of the recipes in this little goodie. I'm only assuming that he came up with the Gin Twist recipe back in the day. But, I may be wrong. So, don't quote me on it.

As with a lot of the recipes found in these antique printings, it leaves a lot up to interpretation. The actual recipe goes as follows <as printed in the book>:

Gin Twist. S.D. (short drink)

Take a wine glass ; put in a small piece of ice, a

teaspoonful of strawberry syrup and half a tea-

spoonful of lemon juice ; fill up with Old Tom gin,

then pare half a lemon, twist, and drop in.

This is an amazing action shot

Awesome. So, when I say "interpretation" that means that when I made this recipe for the first time, I didn't have the exact ingredients on hand at that exact moment. So, I "interpret" the shit out of it. Really, what happened was, I didn't have Old Tom Gin and I just made lemonade with all of the lemons i had in house. Bare with me here. Old Tom gins stylistically are sweetened gins. So, what would happened if the sweetener was misplaced and put into the lemon juice? It's all sugar right? Who cares how it gets in there, just as long as it gets in there? Right? Right. Moving on. 

The Pig on the Plaza event has grown to at least 150 people at this point. That's a lot of Gin Twisting.

Fifty lemons, two bags of oleo saccharum and 14 cups of lemon juice, I'm ready to move on to the strawberry syrup. Now, I haven't had any scholastic or culinary training and I haven't done any true research on it. But, I'm pretty sure any kind of strawberry syrup contains a shit load of strawberries and a whole bunch of sugar. Some might say there is some water in there, too. There is water in strawberries, right? Good enough.

I guess you're supposed to boil and simmer fruit and sugar to create syrups. Let's interpret "syrup" here, too. I'm lazy.

Hull the strawberries and cut them in half. Yes, all 4lbs of them.

Throw them in a bag and add 2 cups of that lovely granulated sugar.

Smoosh them together a bit to jump start that sugar/fruit magic.

Yup. vacuum seal it, too. If you don't have a vacuum sealer like this one, I would assume you can use a Ziploc bag and take as much air out as possible.Just let it sit out on the counter at room temperature for a few hours or until it looks like a lot of the sugar is dissolving.

Okay. You're done for today. Let all of that hard work you just did sit overnight in the fridge.

I know we all have busy schedules nowadays. This will keep fresh in the fridge for a couple days.

You have a blender or a food processor, right? Take it out of the cupboard and dust it off. Strawberries+sugar+blender=strawberry syrup in my Gin Twisted head.  Blend the strawberries until they're smooth. Voila! You have strawberry "syrup". Now you can funnel this syrup into Ball canning jars,  swing-top bottles or whatever resealable vessel you feel like. Personally, I think this tastes better than that nasty syrup crap from a can you get at diners. The sweetness here ends up being a bit brighter and you still have a little texture to it. And, guess what? No boiling, simmering or reducing! Plus, it's works better in cocktails.

The next step was to make my famous and ridiculously delicious oleo saccharum lemonade in large format. I won't bore you with the details.

Gin Twist

2oz Plymouth Gin
1/2oz Strawberry syrup
1oz oleo saccharum lemonade

Combine in a strainer. Add ice and shake.
Strain over fresh ice in a Highball glass
top with 1oz club soda
Garnish with a lemon twist and a sprig of mint