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Blackberry Shrub

A sweetened blackberry juice and vinegar mixture served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Blackberry Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine blackberry juice, sugar, and cider vinegar in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Bottle the mixture and seal it.

  4. Serve chilled with ice and slices of lemon.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Blackberry + cidertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Blackberry + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together83 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Blackberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Blackberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavor and the deep color of the shrub.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sourness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the shrub its tart, sharp character.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, vinegar. 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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