Shrubs are the sweet, sour and sharp secret to superior drinks

If you tell people you enjoy vinegar in drinks, they tend to look at you as if you just recommended bringing back 1980s-era linebacker shoulder pads to women’s attire.

I understand their reaction. I may love acid more than most — it’s the rare dish that I don’t feel could be improved with a squeeze of lemon — but vinegar is a different degree of sour. Thanks to the pungency of the acetic acid it contains, vinegar is sharp-edged, almost bitter, piercing through other flavors like a prison toothbrush shiv.

But even those who love vinegar where it most commonly appears (whipped into a vinaigrette and drizzled over greens) are often not prepared to sip it. It lives in the grocery store aisle next to the oils, ready to gussy up a salad or pickle a pickle, and never sharing space with the soda, tonic water and bitters stocked several aisles over. More people may be spritzing vinegar on their windows than turning it into spritzes to drink.

As a longtime reader of drinks writer Michael Dietsch, I know that’s a shame. More people should be in on the secret of shrubs — sometimes called drinking vinegars — particularly during winter. The sharpness of vinegar can penetrate the chilly doldrums in an invigorating way, especially in a hot toddy formulation. And even well beyond this period of temperance, shrubs — which Dietsch defines as “acidulated syrups” — offer a way to perk up your drinking, with alcohol or without.

Dietsch’s latest book, “Savory and Sweet Shrubs: Tart Mixers for Delicious Cocktails and Mocktails” is his second long-form foray into the subject, after his first book in 2014. “I was looking forward to doing something a little different this time, and pairing fruit and vegetable mains with spices and teas and herbs was exciting to me, because it gave me the opportunity to experiment with flavors in a new way and to rethink what a shrub can be,” Dietsch says. “Some of it was inspired by shrubs I’ve seen on menus in bars around the country and around the world, even things I haven’t had a chance to try,” he says. “To see what people are doing in Portland, Oregon, or San Francisco or Paris is fun, even if I’m not going to get to those bars, to look at their menus and think, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting flavor pairing — maybe I can try that.’”

At their simplest, shrubs are a combination of fruit or vegetables, sugar and vinegar, concentrated into a tart-sweet syrup. The goal isn’t drinkable vinaigrette; it’s a balanced brightener, a syrup with a spine and, depending on how you season it, even spikes. (Some of the best shrubs I’ve made incorporate chiles or other kicky heat sources.) Shrubs can add both lift and body to a drink and before you ask, yes, I do feel like I’m describing a hair mousse.

This isn’t a modern trick, of course; shrubs date back centuries. The word shrub comes from the evolution of the Persian “sharbat” and the Arabic “sharab,” meaning “drink.” Dietsch references the medicinal history common to so many drink components: “A pharmacist’s manual from Cairo, from the year 1260, lists several syrups, their ingredients and their purported medicinal purposes, including rose water julep, thought to soothe bile; sharab al-nilufar (water lily syrup), for fevers; sharab al-laymun-al-safarjali, a syrup of lemon and quince,” and so forth. In the Middle East, variations of these traditional drinks are still served, incorporating flavors such as rose, tamarind and almonds. Closer to home, in colonial America, shrubs were likewise utilized to deal with the lack of refrigeration, the sugar and acid used to preserve fruit well past its natural lifespan. Those concentrates were then diluted with water, spirits or tea, liquid refreshments born out of necessity rather than cocktail culture, becoming everyday drinks. What we’re doing now when we add shrubs to our glasses is both reviving and remembering.

As you experiment with your own concoctions, taste your shrubs frequently as they develop, Dietsch advises, to make sure the flavors are coming through the way you want them to. Remember, you can add sugar levels as you go, and a small pinch of salt can often sharpen flavors and pull everything into focus. Shrubs are forgiving, but they reward some helicopter parenting.

About those grocery store aisles I mentioned earlier: We seem to be living in a golden age of vinegar. My local grocery store is loaded with a spectrum of options: tangerine, white balsamic, fig, traditional wine vinegars aged and barreled in ways that impart new flavors. Some of them run pricey, and Dietsch is refreshingly pragmatic about vinegar selection. “Apple cider vinegar has always been my workhorse when it comes to shrub making,” he says. “That’s not to say that apple cider is going to be the first thing that I look at. It’s not fully neutral, but it’s not the most strongly flavored of the vinegars. The most neutral is probably white wine vinegar and that’s my other go-to. But to build the base, those are the two I first come to.”

Apple cider vinegar is the base for Dietsch’s pear, chamomile and lavender shrub here, but he uses champagne vinegar in one of my favorite savory approaches. Inspired by a complicated, don’t-try-this-at-home dirty martini riff created by Naren Young at New York’s now-shuttered Saxon + Parole, Dietsch created a briny and bright olive, lemon and juniper shrub that’s delicious and far more accessible to the home mixologist. I grabbed Castelvetrano olives and made several little bottles of the stuff, and plan to press them on all the martini buffs I know, expecting that they will both enjoy seasoning their drinks with it and arguing about it endlessly.

The pear and chamomile shrub makes use of the cold-process approach to shrubs, which preserves the fruit’s fresh flavors by macerating it with sugar. The addition of a chamomile and lavender infusion adds complexity, and you can then turn it into a hot toddy, with or without alcohol. When I sat in my chair reading a book — an actual book, with actual pages! — and sipping this fragrant, steaming drink, it was enough to have me waxing nostalgic for the winters of olden times: Sleigh ponies dashing through snow! Tapping maple syrup from trees! Reading by firelight! Early dentistry! Smallpox!

Okay, so nostalgia is dangerous. Shrubs are still delicious.

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Pear, Chamomile and Lavender Shrub and Hot Toddy

For the shrub:

3 large ripe pears (about 1½ pounds total), cored and coarsely grated

½ cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons dried chamomile flowers (or 3 bags chamomile tea)

1 tablespoon dried culinary lavender buds

1 cup boiling water

Ice (optional)

Seltzer, club soda or water (optional)

For the toddy:

3 ounces shrub

2 ounces water

¼ ounce fresh Meyer lemon juice

2 teaspoons honey

1½ ounces vodka or London dry gin (optional)

1 Meyer lemon wheel, for garnish

Make the shrub: In a large, nonreactive bowl, mix together the pears, vinegar and sugar until well combined. Cover, and let sit in a cool place for at least 1 day and up to 2 days.

Line a fine-mesh strainer with several layers of cheesecloth, and set it over a medium bowl or liquid measuring cup with a spout. Strain the pear mixture, pressing firmly on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. You should have about 1½ cups. (Discard the solids.)

In a liquid measuring cup with a spout or another heatproof container, combine the chamomile and lavender, then add the boiling water. Let steep for 10 minutes, then strain through a fine mesh strainer set over a heatproof container, pressing on the solids to extract as much of the liquid as possible. Let cool completely. You should have about 1 cup. (Discard the solids.)

Stir the chamomile-lavender infusion into the pear liquid until fully combined. You should have about 2½ cups, enough for about 6 drinks. Transfer to a clean bottle or jar, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Serve over ice on its own; dilute with seltzer, soda or water; or make a hot toddy, in the next step.

Make the toddy: In a 6-ounce microwave-safe mug, combine the shrub, water, lemon juice and honey. Heat the mixture in the microwave until hot, 30 seconds to 1 minute, then stir to combine and dissolve the honey. (Alternatively, in a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the ingredients and heat, stirring frequently, until hot and the honey dissolves. Remove from the heat and transfer to a heatproof mug.) Add the vodka or gin, if using, garnish with the lemon wheel and serve hot.

Servings: 1 (makes about 2½ cups shrub, enough for about 6 drinks)

Substitutions: For Meyer lemon juice, use regular lemon juice (though the drink will be slightly sharper). For honey, use maple syrup or agave.

Make ahead: The shrub must be made 1 to 2 days in advance.

Storage: Refrigerate the finished shrub for up to 1 year.

Where to buy: Dried chamomile and culinary lavender are available at well-stocked supermarkets, health food stores, spice shops and online.

Nutritional information per drink, using vodka: 127 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 34 g carbohydrates, 2 mg sodium, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 g protein, 0 g fiber, 32 g sugar.

— Adapted from “Savory and Sweet Shrubs” by Michael Dietsch (Countryman Press, 2025).