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Whiskey Shrub

A sweet, tart syrup made from sugar, water, lemon and Seville orange juice, porter, and pine whiskey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Whiskey Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar with the water until it forms a syrup.

  2. Add the strained juice of the lemons and Seville oranges.

  3. Stir the mixture and let it cool completely.

Blend and age

  1. Once cool, add the porter and pine whiskey.

  2. Pour the mixture into a jar, cork it tightly, and shake daily for 7 days.

  3. Store in a cool place for 5 weeks.

  4. After 5 weeks, bottle the shrub and store 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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + pinetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together480 recipes

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

  3. Orange + pinetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Moist sugar
Provides sweetness and body, balancing the acidity of the citrus juice.
Lemons
Supply sharp acidity that gives the shrub its tart character.
Seville oranges
Add bitter-sour citrus flavour and aroma alongside the lemon acidity.
Porter
Adds malty depth and colour to the blend.
Pine whiskey
Provides the alcohol base that carries the flavour and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Let the syrup cool completely before adding the alcohol. Adding porter and whiskey to a hot mixture can drive off aroma and alter flavour. Cooling first keeps the spirit's character intact and the blend stable.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, pine):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, pine. 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.

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