It can be difficult to tell the difference between a passing fad and a true creative shift in the cocktail world. Theming your bar after a ‘70s fern joint? Probably an isolated affectation. House-made bitters and syrups? If the last decade’s any indication, they’re here to stay. Hell, some people are still convinced the very existence of a “cocktail world” is a fad in itself, so consensus on this sort of thing tends to be elusive. But perhaps an ingredient that challenges most people’s definition of what a drink actually entails, like the shrub, is just weird enough to leave a lasting impression.
What is a Shrub?
Basically, a shrub is a syrup made from vinegar, sugar, and fruit, which can be mixed with water, soda, or spirits to make a wide array of drinks. The name is derived from various conjugations of the Arabic word sharāb, meaning “drink,” which also forms the root of a number of other modern English words: sherbet, sorbet, and syrup (the latter via the Latin sirupus).
Since the mid-2000s, shrub drinks have made an impressively quick journey from eliciting a puzzled, “What?” at the bar to becoming a fairly common part of craft drinking vernacular. But their origins go quite a bit further back than a few decades.
In Michael Dietsch’s recent book Shrubs, he dives into the history of these tangy syrups, which is a bigger task than you might imagine. Vinegar has long been consumed as a beverage (not least because people couldn’t bring themselves to throw away old wine), but some of the earliest shrubs date back to Medieval Persia and Turkey, where they were enjoyed by Muslims who needed something to drink in place of alcohol.
These proto-shrubs were known as sherbets, and were essentially sugar tablets mixed with citrus, flowers, herbs, and nuts that could be dissolved in water to make a soft drink. They gradually made their way through Europe and eventually to the Americas, and somewhere along the line people began to mix them with brandy and rum.
Colonial America also provided the other key component of the modern-day shrub: the vinegar. Sweetened “drinking vinegars” flavored with fruit juice were undergoing something of a renaissance in the mid-19th century, and they more or less resembled the shrubs we make today—vinegar, sugar, and fruit.
Over time, the popularity of boozy shrubs waned (particularly once Prohibition came into effect) and vinegar shrubs prevailed. They faded into obscurity for a bit in the middle of the 20th century, but thanks to the Pennsylvania Dutch keeping shrubs alive in the meantime, they’ve since experienced quite the resurgence.
Which Shrubs Should I Buy?
Well, the best answer to that question is probably, “Don’t.” Shrubs are supremely easy to make if you have a few minutes to spare, and we highly recommend picking up Dietsch’s book if you’re looking for somewhere to start.
That said, there are a number of great shrubs on the market these days, and in the last ten years or so the industry has undergone an explosion similar in scope to bitters—which, as we’ve seen, are now available from pretty much any yahoo with a couple of Mason jars and an eyedropper.
A great brand to try first is Tait Farm Foods, located in central Pennsylvania. Their shrubs are inspired by those of the aforementioned Pennsylvania Dutch, and are made entirely from local produce, mostly grown on their own farm.
Another favorite is Shrub & Co., to whom we’re partial due to their location right across the Bay in Berkeley, California. They developed their shrub recipes with craft cocktails in mind, first getting the idea from Jerry Thomas’ Bar-Tender’s Guide.
There are dozens of other brands that are worth a shot, but most experts recommend checking your farmers market for bottles that might not be available commercially. They’re almost certainly going to use fresh, local ingredients, and they offer the unique opportunity of speaking directly with the folks who made them about recipe ideas.
In short, if you’re going to be lazy, at least put a little effort into it.
Are Shrub Drinks Here to Stay?
Getting back to our central question, though, are shrub cocktails just a fad? We decided to go right to the source, bothering Mr. Dietsch on what must otherwise have been a lovely afternoon.
“I think that the current popularity of shrubs is perhaps something of a fad, though I hope it’s not too faddish because I want to keep selling books,” he told us. “However, I believe they have staying power. You might not hear about them all the time anymore, and you might not see them on as many cocktail menus, but I think as a cocktail ingredient, they’re here to stay, and you’ll always be able to find shrub cocktails if you look for them.”
This is mostly because they fit perfectly into larger shifts that were already underway. “I think the biggest trend right now in cocktails is to go for flavors that are more sophisticated—in some cases herbal or spicy, and in some cases even savory,” he continued.
“Cocktails have trended away from being sweetly fruity. Fruity cocktails can be one-note, and for years the impulse was to make them taste like candy. Shrubs give a bartender the chance to take fruity or vegetal flavors and tweak them with tart vinegar and sometimes herbal or spicy flavors, and I think they’re part of a trend toward sophistication in cocktails.”
Because they’re so easy to make at home, we’re inclined to agree. Compared to bitters, complex reductions, and esoteric things like clarified milk, shrubs don’t require much in the way of labor or arcane ingredients. Pretty much everything you need to whip up a batch is either in your kitchen already or available at even the lamest of grocery stores.
Combined with a natural shift in the market towards the flavors they’re best at, that low barrier to entry probably means we’ll be seeing shrubs on bar menus, cocktail blogs, and even in stores for a good long while. After all, there’s money to be made.
“The most surprising thing I’ve seen since I published Shrubs was at the San Francisco airport, where I saw the brand INNA’s shrubs and jams,” Dietsch told us. “Shrubs at a fucking airport, man. Who could have guessed?”
Photo: Wikipedia
