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Raspberry Shrub for Iced Water

A vinegar-based raspberry syrup made by macerating raspberries in cider vinegar, sweetened with sugar, and used to flavor iced water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 for Iced Water

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Fill a half-gallon glass jar with fresh red raspberries.

  2. Pour cider vinegar over the raspberries until the jar is full.

  3. Screw the cover on.

  4. Let the jar stand for one week.

Cook and bottle

  1. Scald the mixture.

  2. Pour the scalded mixture into a jelly bag to drain.

  3. Add 1 pound of loaf sugar for each pint of juice.

  4. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

  5. Skim off any scum from the boiling mixture.

  6. While hot, pour into six bottles or glass jars.

  7. Add one spoonful of the shrub to a glass of iced 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.

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

Red raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and the juice that forms the shrub.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that extracts fruit flavor and keeps the shrub tart and stable.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the shrub and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum from the boiling mixture.. Foam and scum rising during boiling can cloud the syrup and carry impurities into the bottled shrub. Removing it keeps the final liquid clear and clean-tasting.

“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.

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