Skip to main content
Drink

Shrub, Brandy

A sweetened vinegar drink made with lemon, brandy, sherry or Marsala, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Shrub, Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Cut the rind of the lemon into thin strips and place in a bottle. Add the strained juice of the two lemons and the brandy.

  2. Cork the bottle tightly and let it stand in a cool place for four days.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and add the sherry or Marsala, sugar, and nutmeg.

  2. Filter the preparation, and it will be ready for use.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Brandy
Acts as the base spirit, extracting flavour from the lemon and keeping the shrub stable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightness of the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the acidity and the spirit's sharpness.
Sherry or marsala
Adds body and a rounded, fortified wine flavour to the blend.

The step that matters

Cork and stand for four days. The lemon rind and juice need time in alcohol to release their oils and flavour. Keeping the bottle tightly corked and cool preserves aroma and limits evaporation while the flavours blend.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sherry, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sherry, sugar, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipesLemon EssenceLemon Essence8 recipes