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Currant Shrub

A sweetened currant juice mixed with rum and sugar, strained and bottled as a shrub.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Currant Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the fruit and prepare it in a jar as for jelly.

  2. Strain the juice.

Make the shrub

  1. Combine 2 quarts of white currant juice, 1 gallon of rum, and 1½ pounds of lump sugar in a pan.

  2. Stir well and cover closely.

  3. Let it stand overnight.

  4. Stir again in the morning.

Clarify and bottle

  1. Strain through a sieve or coarse cloth.

  2. Strain through a jelly-bag.

  3. If not clear, repeat the process.

  4. Bottle 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. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  2. White currant + rumtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

White currant juice
Provides the tart fruit flavour and acidity that defines the shrub.
Rum
Acts as the spirit base that preserves the mixture and carries the fruit aroma.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the sharpness of the currant juice.

The step that matters

Standing overnight and clarifying. Sugar must dissolve fully in the juice and rum during the overnight rest, and straining repeatedly removes fine solids so the shrub becomes clear rather than cloudy.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rum, sugar. 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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