Pucker Up, Bottoms Up: How to Turn Any Fruit Into a Shrub for the Most Refreshing DIY Drinks

These concentrated, sweet-tart syrups, originally a way to preserve seasonal fruit, are making a comeback—including in the home kitchen

You can make a shrub with just about any fruit, but this pretty pink version is a simple way to use up all the rhubarb in your garden. Use bright red rhubarb, diced small, and white wine vinegar. Mint, cardamom, and ginger are all nice additions. Jennifer McGruther

Before there was Coca-Cola, there were shrubs. Not the kind that grow in your garden, but a sweet-and-sour drinking vinegar that’s irresistible, especially in hot weather. Infused with fruit, herbs, and spices, shrubs not only slake your thirst but also provide an inventive way to preserve seasonal bounty. And just like baking sourdough and fermenting your own sauerkraut, shrubs are on the verge of a comeback.

Shrubs are more than a drink. They’re a tradition with deep roots that stretch from ancient medicine-makers to seafarers, pirates, and hard-working early American colonists, all the way to the mixologist at your local hipster bar. For good reason, too: Shrubs taste delicious and are one of the easiest things you can make in your kitchen.

So, What Is It?

A shrub is a vinegar-based syrup with a startling sweet-and-sour flavor. At its most basic, a shrub needs only vinegar, sweetener, and fruit. You can also add herbs and spices. Once the shrub syrup is ready, you stir it into mineral water for a pleasant soft drink, or, as 17th-century sailors were fond of doing, add it to rum.

Ancient Medicine

Shrubs’s roots stretch far back to ancient Persia, where they were called sekanjabinat, referencing the drink’s primary ingredients: vinegar (serke) and honey (anjabin). Herbalists combined honey, vinegar, fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs to remedy all sorts of ailments, from pain and indigestion to fevers and even snake bites.