Exmoor Lockdown Diary 17 - Shrubs: How To Make Them and Drink Them

Another day away from the shops or food stores - another day thinking about food and drink. This time, I’ve been considering shrubs - not the kind you plant in the garden, but the sort you make from fruit vinegars…

In all the bars in all the world, there are countless drinks and cocktails with exotic sounding names. Shrub is not one of them. But while it might not come across as being exotic or adventurous, the word “shrub” describes a fascinating style of drink that has been delighting palates for a very long time. Now, shrubs are taking off in popularity once again.  

And the shrub renaissance is being led by some of the world’s top mixologists. By using raw ingredients like ripe fruits alongside the magic elixir, otherwise known as vinegar, the inventors of the new drinks are creating extraordinary flavours that can be tasted in both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.   

The story of shrub is a fascinating one that was born centuries ago on the wild coasts of Cornwall where barrels of smuggled rum were often tainted with seawater. In an attempt to make the stuff palatable, the ever-inventive Cornish came up with a strongly flavoured cordial to take the edge off the salty booze.

Perhaps they called it “shrub” because it mainly consisted of any strongly flavoured herbs picked from local hedgerows. These were infused with cider vinegar and a pinch of sugar. 

Shrub’s popularity crept east of the Tamar and eventually a well known firm of vintners cashed-in by creating a branded drink of that name and marketing it far and wide. That shrub is still available today, but it’s not the artisan made drink we’re talking about here. 

I first learned about shrubs in Cornwall - at the excellent Watergate Bay Hotel just north of Newquay.

Watergate Bay

Staff at the hotel staged a competition and that was where i learned that the substances fuelling the renaissance in the world’s hippest bars are very much homemade concoctions. And one of the most exciting things about the concept is that you do not need to be an expert mixologist to make your own. 

We can create shrubs at home and enjoy them as non-alcoholic cordials mixed with something like sparkling water, or as delicious cocktails armed with a punch. We can even use shrubs to flavour stocks and sauces. 

It was Aspall cider company’s Henry Chevallier Guild who began thinking about shrub style drinks when his wife persuaded him to join her in occasional periods of abstaining from alcohol. Henry has written about the subject and he says that one of the difficulties of abstinence is the shortage of alternative “interesting things to drink”.

Looking into the subject he discovered that vinegar (which, of course Aspall makes in the form of cider vinegars) was often added to drinks to make them more palatable. 

“The Babylonians added date vinegar to water to make it safe to drink. The Romans were at it as well, mixing vinegar and water to make a beverage called posca.  Colonial-era sailors carried shrubs rich with Vitamin C aboard their boats to prevent scurvy. Unsurprisingly, shrubs gained popularity during the Temperance movement, and many 19th and early 20th century housekeeping manuals contain recipes for them,” says Henry.

“A whole new world opened up. I make shrubs not from pre-packed cordials and syrups, but from the raw fruits themselves. And once you start doing this, the portfolio of options really does expand exponentially. You can use pretty much anything to make a shrub – parsnip, rosemary and cracked black pepper anyone? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

So this really could be a soft drink revolution. Both shrub and syrup are derived from the Arabic ‘sharbah’ which means ‘a drink’ - like the word sherbet. They really are very old drinks indeed. 

But today it’s all about ‘mouth feel’. That is what you get with an alcoholic drink - non-alcoholic drinks tend to be overly-sugared to make up for the lack of it. And this is partly what is fuelling the shrub revolution.

The hippest bars nowadays have shrub cocktail menus and it’s only a matter of time before national pub chains start doing it. 

Shrubs have a hand-made feel - you can follow seasonal recipes - but it is the acid quality that makes the real difference. 

Inspired, I made some shrub at home after buying a couple of punnets of raspberries nearly past their the sell-by date. Armed with a bag of satsumas, a bottle of Aspall’s cider vinegar and a few spoonfuls of sugar, I was in business. And I promise you, the results were delicious.