Skip to main content
Drink

Raspberry Shrub

A preserved raspberry drink made by steeping berries in cider vinegar, sweetening the resulting syrup, and serving over ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Raspberry Shrub

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Raspberry Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate the berries

  1. Pour 1 gallon of cider vinegar over 12 quarts of black raspberries, ensuring the vinegar saturates but does not completely cover the berries.

  2. Keep the mixture in a cool place for 24 hours.

  3. Mash the berries.

  4. Strain the mixture through a coarse cloth.

  5. Measure the juice.

Make the syrup

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for each pint of juice, allowing the sugar to melt slowly.

  2. Boil the syrup for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Put 3 tablespoons of the shrub over crushed ice in a glass.

  2. Fill the glass with water.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the shrub and helps extract flavor from the berries.
Black raspberries
Supply the main fruit flavor, aroma and color to the finished shrub.
Sugar
Balances the acidity with sweetness and helps preserve the syrup.

The step that matters

Keep the berries cool while they steep. Leaving the mixture in a warm place can encourage unwanted fermentation and spoilage before the vinegar fully preserves the fruit. A cool place slows microbial growth while the acid extracts flavor.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More raspberry shrub recipes

Strawberry 3 See all 59 →

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesApple CiderApple Cider11 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipes