Cold Processed Homemade Berry Shrub

I love a good shrub. The chemical transformation in just hours of the mixture of fruit, perhaps some herbs, sugar, and vinegar creates a unique libation as part of a cocktail, blended with soda water, or used as an ingredient to make a dressing or sauce. You can pour shrubs over ice cream, too.

I first came across shrubs just over a couple of years ago when I met and wrote about the owners of The Gingered Pear. They create astounding shrubs and syrups--so wonderful that it really hadn't occurred to me to try my hand at it at home. Then I got some gorgeous berries from Specialty Produce and that little balloon thought appeared over my head. What if... So I did some research.

What I learned is that there are essentially two methods of making a shrub, both easy and requiring few ingredients. One is via heat and a fairly quick process. The other is a cold method that sits for several hours or even a day or two as the ingredients macerate.

Essentially what you'll want is your fruit, sugar, and vinegar--red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar are good choices. You want something that has some substance but won't overtake the fruit flavors. Balsamic is a good choice, too, but know that it will vie with the fruit in terms of flavors. It's actually what I used for my shrub along with the apple cider vinegar.

Another cool thing about shrubs has to do with the fruit. Since the fruit will be turned into a liquid, you don't need to buy the most flawless, perfect fruit. If you have peaches or plums or berries that are a little past their prime, they're great candidates for a shrub.

Okay, so what do you do? The quick way is to combine equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan and stir the mixture over heat until the sugar dissolves. Then add your fruit. Stir as it simmers and the juice melds with the sugar mixture, becoming syrupy. Let it cool, strain the solids, and add your vinegar. That's it.

Now some people feel that the way to extract more complexity and brightness is to go with the cold method. There's no heat to dull the fruit flavors. This, too, is quite easy. And, it's what I did.

In a bowl I mashed the berries a little to extract some of the juice and allow the sugar to penetrate more easily--sort of a head start. Then I added the sugar, covered the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerated it.

The next morning, I pulled the bowl out of the fridge and could see the juices and syrup already forming.

At this point you strain the liquid from the fruit. If you have a fine mesh strainer or chinois, that's the perfect tool for this. Press down on the fruit to get every last drop.

Then you'll whisk in your vinegar.

Pour it into a pretty bottle using a funnel and you're good to go.

Your shrub will be wonderfully tart and sweet, a combination that will mellow with time when stored in the fridge. I like to keep it simple and enjoy it combined with sparkling water on a hot late afternoon.

I've got a recipe for you that I adapted from Serious Eats that outlines the process perfectly.

Cold Processed Berry Shrub
(printable recipe)
Yield: 20 to 24 ounces of shrub syrup

Ingredients
1 cup of berries
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1. Place berries in a bowl and gently mash them to release some juice.
2. Add sugar and mix together. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least six hours or overnight until the fruit releases liquids into a syrup. There's no hurry here.
3. Place the mixture into a fine mesh strainer or chinois over a bowl or measuring cup and carefully press on the fruit and sugar mixture to extract as much syrup as possible. If there's some sugar remaining in the original bowl scrape that in, too.
4. Whisk the vinegar into the syrup.
5. Using a funnel, pour your shrub into a bottle. Seal and keep refrigerated.

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The Gingered Pear: Seasonal Fruity Cocktails at Your Fingertips

Over the holidays I did a little holiday cocktail round up from ingredients the nice folks at the Hillcrest Whole Foods gave me to try. One company in particular made an impression on me with their tangy Apple Fennel Shrub. That would be Del Mar-based The Gingered Pear. They reached out to me later to thank me for including them in the piece and before I knew it, we'd made a date for me to come over and get a cocktail lesson, using their shrubs and syrups.

The duo who own the business, Colette Bolitho and Jennifer Woodmansee, are friends who met several years ago through their young children. They discovered they both had a passion for food and cooking. And cocktails. One thing led to another and five years later they launched their business, creating seasonal shrubs and syrups from produce as local as possible, including Stehly Farms and Specialty Produce's farm program.

The flavors are made up of some unconventional combinations, including carrot orange, tangerine lavender, and Meyer lemon bay leaf. Their inspiration is a favorite inspiration of mine, The Flavor Bible, and they find the book gives them just enough of a jumping off point to come up with just not flavors for their products but unique cocktails and mocktails.

This spring, The Gingered Pear is featuring Strawberry Rosemary shrub, Apple Fennel shrub, Meyer Lemon Bay Leaf syrup, and Tangerine Lavender syrup.

When I got to Jennifer's house (the pair actually do their mixing and bottling at a commercial kitchen but we decided to meet at Jennifer's house), the kitchen counters were overflowing with glasses and fruit, piles of herbs, a large green herb salad, a platter of cheese, crackers, and these insane prosciutto mustard puff pastry rollups. And, of course, all sorts of liquor and mixers. In other words, heaven.

Shrubs, of course, are a flavoring comprised of fruit, sugar, and vinegar. Heat up the sugar and vinegar until the sugar dissolves and pour over the fruit. Let it stand until the fruit flavor infuses the liquid. Syrups are similar, sans the vinegar--combine sugar and water and heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture becomes syrupy. Add your flavors, simmer, and stir periodically, heating until the fruit or herbs soften. Remove from the heat and let cool. Then strain the syrup through a fine sieve.

Easy, huh? Well, yes. But we don't always have time to do everything from scratch, which is why I'm drawn to these tasty mixtures from The Gingered Pear. They're fresh and hand-made, and perfect not just for cocktails but also to pour over desserts or, in the case of the shrubs, over a salad or even to lightly pickle vegetables. Colette recently poured the Strawberry Rosemary shrub over sliced red onion and radishes to pickle them.

Colette pours the Apple Fennel shrub over an herbaceous green salad.

But, let's talk cocktails and mocktails. How about the Apple Fennel shrub combined with cucumber, mint, vodka, and sparkling sake? A Meyer Lemon Bay Leaf mocktail with tonic water, shaken with a fresno chile? Tangerine Lavender syrup with champagne as a twist on a traditional mimosa? Or a Meyer Lemon Lillet Rose cocktail? Let's just say this visit was a very happy start to my day.

I've got two recipes for you from The Gingered Pear that just speak to spring:

Tangerine Tequila Cocktail
From The Gingered Pear
Makes 1 cocktail

1.5 ounces Tangerine Lavender syrup
1/2 - 1 ounce tequila
Club soda to taste
Fresh Cilantro
Tangerine slices
Hurricane glass or margarita glass

Rub a cut tangerine on rim of glass, then dip the glass in salt.

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add tangerine lavender syrup, tequila, and cilantro. Shake it well, until frosty.

Strain contents of the shaker into salt-rimmed glass. Top with club soda. Garnish with slices of tangerine.

Strawberry Shrub Cocktail
From The Gingered Pear
Makes 2 cocktails

3 ounces Strawberry Rosemary Shrub
2 ounces gin or vodka (optional)
6 ounces club soda (or to taste)
2 to 3 dashes orange bitters to taste (optional)
Sprigs of rosemary
Thin slices of orange

Fill cocktail shaker half full of ice. Add shrub, gin or vodka, and orange bitters if desired. Shake to combine the ingredients.

Strain into two 8-ounce glasses filled with ice. Top with club soda. Garnish with rosemary, orange, and a couple of blackberries.

Notice all those garnishes? The ladies explain that it's the power of the garnishes that prepare you for what you're going to taste.

The Gingered Pear's products can be found at all four San Diego Whole Foods markets as well as Seaside Market, and Del Mar Wine Company.


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Mixed Drinks for the Holidays

I always tell people I'm not much of a drinker--and I'm not--but that doesn't keep me from having the occasional glass of wine or champagne or a cocktail. I enjoy them, but on a small scale. So I'm usually resistant to pitches involving cocktails or their ingredients. But my friend Carolyn Kates at Whole Foods Hillcrest insisted I try some products they had in and when I spoke to her colleague, wine specialist Desiree Turchan, who also gave me some recipes, I was sold.

And since I go for chocolate even more than alcohol, I've also included a new find here that you can curl up with in front of a fire.

So, let's get drinking!

To keep up with all the caviar I enjoyed last week, I needed to have friends come over and help me sample. What else to serve with caviar but some bubbly. I pulled out a bottle of prosecco, but instead of just serving it plain, I dropped in some beautiful wild hibiscus flowers in syrup. This is, in fact, what the label on the small jar calls them. Made in Australia, they are, indeed, wild hibiscus flowers marinating in a simple sugar water syrup which unfurl once they hit the liquid.

Be sure to eat the flower once you've drained the champagne flute. They're sweet and crunchy with a floral flavor!

Now, one of my issues currently with drinking much alcohol is that it has a high carb count. So imagine my surprise in learning about a new product called Bon Affair. Created by Solana Beach resident Jayla Siciliano, Bon Affair is a wine spritzer that comes in two varieties Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah.

Now why a wine spritzer--and why this one when you can easily create your own? Well, 100 calories and 3 grams of carbs for an 8-ounce serving is a good start. Woo hoo! Let's party! These spritzers are made with California wine, and according to the company contain electrolytes, purified carbonated water, and natural flavors and extracts--no added sugar. And, oh so important, it tastes great. Not sweet; just sparkly and crisp. Here's a glass of the Sauv Blanc with the hibiscus flower in it.

Another flavor we added to our sparkling wines was a new shrub from The Gingered Pear. Shrubs, of course, are blends of flavored vinegar syrup. This Del Mar-based business uses cold pressing to allow the fruit to maintain its true flavor. They're succeeding. Their shrubs were named the best new product at the Hillcrest Whole Foods in 2013.

The flavor I tried was pomegranate ginger. We tasted it in the Bon Affair Sauv Blanc and in the prosecco and it was a hit. The fear was that it would be too sweet and/or overpower the bubbly. It did neither. It was wonderfully tart and acidic, adding a nice punch to the sparkles.

Then there was the bottle of Bar Keep organic bitters. The bitters are a collaboration between Greenbar Collective and U.S. bartenders. Flavors include apple, Chinese, fennel, and lavender. I took home the Marshall Altier (a New York mixologist) apple and a recipe for a fruit salad using the bitters from Desiree. Using these bitters to make a dressing for a simple fruit salad makes complete sense. With the flavors of caramelized apple and baking spices, a few dashes are perfect for a dessert. I riffed on it a bit, including half a pear and a mix of dried fruit instead of currants. But this is a perfectly riffable dish.

Fruit Salad with Apple Bitters
from Desiree Turchan
(printable recipe)

Makes 3 or 4 servings

1 pink lady apple, diced
2 fuyu persimmons, peeled and diced
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon grapeseed oil
5 dashes apple bitters

Dice the fruit and add to bowl. Whisk together the cinnamon, honey, oil, and bitters. Toss dressing with fruit.

Thanks to the apple and cinnamon, it reminds me of a Passover harosets. It's sweet and crunchy and oh so aromatic.

But, of course, you'll want a cocktail recipe, too. I got one from Desiree that uses the Chinese bitters.

Chinese Mule
from Desiree Turchan

2 ounces bourbon
1 ounce apple fennel shrub
6 to 8 dashes Chinese bitters
2 to 4 ounces ginger beer

Mix the first three ingredients together, shake, and strain. Top with ginger beer.

Okay, so how about you adult nondrinkers? Or those adults who just love hot chocolate? A Massachusetts company called Taza has created intriguing chocolate flavors reminiscent of Ibarra Mexican chocolate. They are even molded and packaged in the familiar disc format. The stone-ground, organic chocolate is the brainchild of founder Alex Whitmore, who while traveling through Oaxaca, Mexico, became so inspired by the chocolate and chocolate-making methodology that he decided to open his own factory in Massachusetts. The company practices ethical cacao sourcing and established a third-party Direct Trade Cacao Certification program. But none of this matters unless the flavors are good. And, they are. They make about a dozen flavors. I picked up the Guajillo Chili and Spiked Eggnog packages and made hot cocoa with each.

I'm sold on these two at least. Now these are very sophisticated flavors (others include coffee, ginger, salted almond, orange, and salt and pepper). So they aren't really for young kids. But adults will love this chocolate, which can also be used for baking or just eating out of hand. The site has lots of recipe suggestions.

With so many options for celebrating the holidays, I doubt you'll go thirsty.




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