How to make a refreshing shrub: the US fruit-based vinegar drink
Popular with America’s settlers, the shrub was considered healthier than plain water and a good way for sailors to avoid scurvy. We show you how to make your own delicious apple shrub
In the world of drinks, a shrub has nothing to do with gardening.
The word is believed to come from Arabic, where a sharab is a drink that is offered to guests. Hindu Indians had sharbat – herb or flower-flavoured syrups that were diluted with water.
There are two types of drinks called the shrub. In 17th- and 18th-century England a shrub consisted of rum or brandy mixed with sugar and fruit juice or rinds. The drink could be found in most pubs until it lost popularity towards the end of the 19th century.
In the US, it’s a fruit-based vinegar drink that can be sipped “neat”, or used in cocktails. In colonial America, settlers often drank vinegar-based shrubs with water, which on its own was thought to be unsafe. Sailors of yore brought shrubs on board for long voyages, to prevent scurvy.
Today, the US shrub is coming back into vogue as a healthy drink that is considered good for the digestive system. They’re huge in Korea, where you can buy an array of them at almost every grocery store or convenience shop. At Sevva, the eatery on top of the Prince’s Building in Central, there a page devoted to shrubs, all made in-house.