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Raspberry Shrub

A sweetened vinegar syrup made from raspberries, cider vinegar, sugar, and water.

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

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

  2. Strain the mixture and add 3 quarts of fresh raspberries to the liquid.

  3. After 12 hours, strain again and boil for 20 minutes.

Sweeten and bottle

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

  2. Bottle the mixture and when serving, add 1 tablespoon to each 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 flavor and color that the vinegar draws out.
Pure cider vinegar
Extracts the fruit flavor and gives the shrub its sharp acidity.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and gives the syrup body.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar. Sugar dissolves most fully into warm liquid, so adding it after boiling while the liquid is still warm helps it blend evenly and keeps the syrup from tasting grainy or unevenly sweet.

“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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