Skip to main content
Drink

Raspberry Shrub

A sweetened vinegar made with raspberries, cider vinegar, and sugar, served diluted with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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

Infuse the vinegar

  1. Soak 3 quarts of very ripe raspberries in 1 quart of pure cider vinegar for 24 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add 3 quarts of fresh raspberries.

  4. Let it stand for 12 hours.

  5. Strain again.

Sweeten and bottle

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for each pint of the liquid.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Bottle the mixture.

Serve

  1. When using, add 1 tablespoon to a glass of 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

Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour that the vinegar draws out during soaking.
Cider vinegar
Extracts fruit flavour and gives the shrub its sharp, acidic bite.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and adds sweetness, and helps preserve the syrup when boiled.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding sugar. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and thickens the syrup, helping it keep well in the bottle. Boiling too briefly can leave the syrup thin and less stable.

“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