Make a Cherry Shrub, a bright and spicy drink for your mocktails or casual drinks this festive season.
Cherries and Blueberries are available frozen, but fresh fruit, such as Goldenberries and Cranberries make fabulous shrubs, too.
Ingredients:
1 lb frozen dark cherries, whole
¼ cup pure water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon allspice berries
½ teaspoon cloves
1 star anise
3 teaspoons coconut sugar
½ cup raw apple cider vinegar
Method:
1. Place fruit, still frozen, in a heavy-bottomed pot along with water, sugar and spices.
Cover and bring to a low boil. Uncover the pot and keep on simmer for at least 15 minutes, checking to make sure liquid does not boil away. You are decocting the spices—cooking the spices to blend their essence into the liquid and fruit.
2. Turn off heat. Add vinegar and replace the cover. Allow to rest, covered for 15 minutes to 1 hour before straining and bottling. Best flavor develops overnight after the shrub was made.
3. Store in the refrigerator. Keeps about 2 weeks.
Shrubs have a very sweet and tangy taste.
A shrub is a complex combination of fruit, spices, sugar and vinegar. These Fruit Shrubs will enhance another drink, whether alcoholic, or non-. The apple-cider vinegar base is really healthful. The addition of spices to fruit provides complex flavors for festive drinks and beverages.
To Use: Drinking a shrub neat is okay but powerfully vinegar-y. Instead, plan to mix small amounts of the shrub into a complimentary liquid. Such liquids as cold-brewed green or black tea, cold-brewed herbal tea, sparkling water, or unsweetened cranberry or pomegranate juice are good choices.
To serve: Place 2 tablespoons in a 6-8 oz glass. Pour enough liquid into the glass to fill. Stir. Serve!
The Major Bonus of Cherry Shrub:
Do not throw out the cherries! Most of the cherries will keep their shape during cooking. They’ll retain their beautiful, rounded shape, dark claret in color, plump and juicy. Once you separate them from the shrub, they should be refrigerated for another use. Accompany salads with a side of 2-3 of these preserved gems, plop into drinks, decorate desserts, pile on toast with vegan cream cheese, etc. Their taste is only slightly spicy, but the combination of spices, sugar and vinegar makes them delectable!
Note:
Making shrubs with fresh berries, such as Goldenberries or Cranberries is fun and delicious! The fresh fruit breaks down in cooking, but doesn’t disappear. Instead you’ll get a thickened, silky, rich shrub that stores longer than shrubs made from frozen berries. Use the same recipe, but feel free to experiment with spice combinations and the ratios of water and sugar to vinegar. Fresh fruit has plenty of water and sugar, naturally, but that water is not physically separate from the fruit as with frozen fruit. You might require a little bit more water than with frozen fruit.
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