Articles
Preserve it! Drink a Shrub
By Laura Crowley, UCCE Master Food Preserver of El Dorado County
Published in Mountain Democrat September 4, 2024
While vinegar-based beverages may seem to be the current rage, humans have been drinking vinegar in various forms since antiquity, with records going back at least 4,000 years ago to the Babylonians. The sugar-sweetened versions we know today as shrubs can be traced to Turkey (the word shrub derives from the Arabic word sharâb, meaning “to drink”). By the time that drink made its way to colonial America by the very early 1700s, it was in the modified form of a citrus and sugar syrup blended with either brandy or rum. Drinks known as fruit vinegar, consisting of fruit (especially raspberries), sugar, and vinegar, became popular here at about the same time and by the mid-1800s also became known as shrubs.
Another early vinegar drink known as switchel arose in the Caribbean sometime in the 16th or 17th centuries. Made with vinegar, ginger, water, and likely molasses, switchel came to colonial New England by the late 1600s along with the molasses trade. Once there, honey and sometimes maple syrup – sweeteners readily available in New England – replaced the molasses. It was served to farmers, especially during hay-harvesting time, and thus switchel came to be known as “hay-maker’s punch.”
For various reasons, by the end of Prohibition shrubs fell out of favor. Now, with the advent of the craft cocktail and food preservation/DIY movements, shrubs are finding a renaissance.