Name: Raspberry Shrub
Ingredients: 2 cups fresh raspberries; 2 cups vinegar; 1 pound sugar

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Shrub

Ingredients

2 cups fresh raspberries
2 cups vinegar
1 pound sugar

Directions

Macerate the fruit

Place the raspberries in an earthen dish.
Cover them with vinegar.
Let it stand overnight.

Strain and sweeten

Strain the mixture through a cloth, similar to how you would for currant jelly.
Add 1 pound of sugar to the pint of juice.
Bring the mixture to a boil.

Cool and store

Allow the mixture to cool.
Cork tightly.
Store in a cool place.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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 aroma, and colour the liquid.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the shrub its sharp, tangy character and helps preserve it.
Sugar: Balances the acidity with sweetness and helps preserve the syrup.

“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.