According to the search engine on my blog, I haven’t mentioned shrub before, which surprises me – it was my drink discovery of last year and I’ve certainly brought it up many times in conversations. You can get a short history on Wikipedia but I came across it via stumbling upon Cook House in Newcastle last year. Jane and I stumbled across it and had such an amazing lunch that she bought me a copy of the cookbook produced by the restaurant’s founder on the spot to wrap up as my birthday present. On the day I remember drinking a fantastic glass of kombucha but the book contained a recipe for shrub, along the lines of the vinegar syrup mentioned by Wikipedia.

The method is quite simple. You take a strongly flavoured ingredient, steep it in vinegar for a couple of weeks (I’ve used white wine and cider vinegars) and then boil the infused vinegar with some sugar to create a sharp syrup. You wouldn’t want to drink it neat but a small portion can be diluted with various other drinks. Just a dash in the bottom of a glass, topped up with cold water is delicious and refreshing and it pairs well with all sorts of spirits and spirit-based cocktails too.

The two ingredients I’ve experiment with so far are lovage and rhubarb. Last year I started with rhubarb and then tried lovage. This year, I’ve already done a first batch with lovage and, today, I’ve set the results of my first rhubarb harvest steeping in a glass jar in the fridge. I jammed the jar full of rhubarb stalks split into two or more spears and topped up with white wine vinegar. By the time it is ready, I expect it will be a beautiful pink colour. I’ll weigh the coloured and flavoured vinegar and then add sugar to take the edge of the acidity – potentially up to the same weight again but I’ll start with less than that. The aim is to balance sharpness and sweetness while allowing for the character of the original ingredient to shine through.

The other thing I’d like to try this year is experimenting with some further ingredients. For example, I’ve got a punnet of plums which, if they start to turn, might end up getting the vinegar bath treatment, and I wonder whether things like welsh onions or nettle tips might produce worthwhile results? Experimentation lies ahead!