Apple Shrub
A delicious spiced apple drinking vinegar
Yield: 20
Cost: $5
Equipment
- Grater
- Bowl
- Jar with lid
- Saucepan optional
- Measuring cups
- Funnel
- Bottle with stopper or jar with lid
Materials
- 4 apples peeled and grated
- 1 cup brown sugar loosely packed
- 1 tsp. coriander Play around with spice combinations and proportions
- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
- 2 pods cardamom
- 1 Tbs. lemon juice
- Apple cider cinegar Add after expressing the juice from the apples.
Instructions
- Peel and grate the apples into a bowl. Tip: grate each apple on one side down to the core, then turn the apple and continue grating until all you have left is the core.
- Add the brown sugar, the lemon juice, and the spices. Feel free to play with the proportions of these spices. In fact, you may want to make your shrub using apple pie spices. Try 1 tsp. Cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. Nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp. Cloves.
- Stir the mixture for a few minutes until it is well-blended, then cover tightly and set aside for 2-5 hours.
- After a few hours, stir it again, then cover it and set it aside on your counter or in the fridge. Wait 2-3 days.
- After 2-3 days, place a strainer over a medium size bowl and pour the mixture through it. Use a large spoon to press as much juice out of the apples as you can, then discard the fruit.
- Measure the juice/sugar mixture (or eyeball it). Add apple cider vinegar in a 1:1 ratio. Add more vinegar if you like. (I added about 25% more vinegar.)
- Optional: heat the mixture in a saucepan over medium high heat and simmer gently for 3-5 minutes to pasteurize it.
- Pour your shrub into a clean jar or bottle and tightly cover. You can use it now, but recommended that you wait a few days to let the flavors marry and get happy.
Notes
This basic recipe for an apple shrub can be used to make almost any shrub with any fruit, any sugar, any vinegar, and any (or no) herbs and spices.
I used a cold shrubbing method for this recipe and heated the mixture at the end of the process to pasteurize it before bottling it up. If the hot mixture is poured into a bottle or jar with only 1/4" of headspace and topped with an airtight lid, an unopened shrub will keep without refrigeration for 4-6 weeks as the heat will pull a vacuum and seal the jar. To keep it longer, the USDA recommends processing sealed bottles or jars in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. This method is safe for acidic foods. Note: I don't recommend heating if you plan to refrigerate your shrub immediately.
Since both sugar and vinegar are natural preservatives and the mixture is highly acidic (below 3.5 ph) you can see why shrubs were a popular concoction before the age of refrigeration, dating all the way back to Ancient Rome.