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Drink

Shrub, with Brandy or Rum

A preserved fruit vinegar made with brandy or rum, lemon juice, lemon rind, nutmeg, mountain wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Shrub, with Brandy or Rum

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Combine the brandy, lemon juice, lemon rind, and nutmeg in a large bottle.

  2. Cork the bottle tightly and let it stand for 3 days.

Finish and bottle

  1. Add the mountain wine and loaf sugar, mixing well.

  2. Strain the mixture twice through a flannel bag.

  3. Bottle the shrub 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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

French brandy
Acts as the base spirit, carrying the lemon and nutmeg flavours and preserving the mixture.
Lemon juice
Provides the acidity that gives the shrub its sharp, bright character.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic oils that flavour the spirit during the standing period.
Old mountain wine
Adds body and extra liquid, diluting the spirit into a drinkable blend.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Cork the bottle tightly and let it stand for 3 days. The brandy must have time to draw flavour from the lemon rind and nutmeg. Sealing the bottle keeps the alcohol and aromatics from evaporating, so the infusion develops fully before the sugar and wine are added.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, lemon, wine, 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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