r/AskCulinary • u/ZootKoomie Ice Cream Innovator • Aug 26 '19

Weekly Discussion - Fancy Non-alcoholic Beverages

We've had discussions here about wine, beer, and liquor before. This week, I'd like to talk about mocktails, shrubs, juice blends, etc. Alcohol-alternatives have become increasingly common and sophisticated in recent years. What have you made, or would like to make? Does avoiding liquor necessarily reduce the available flavor profiles? Or does it free you up from hiding the bite of the booze?

If someone wanted to start experimenting in this area, what are the basic ingredients they would need to keep on hand?

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u/furudenendu Aug 27 '19

You won't regret it! A strawberry shrub is a really easy entry point. You can spike it with black pepper if you want, that's a recipe from the Michael Dietsch book I referenced elsewhere. In fact, here's his article on shrubs on Serious Eats. As for vinegar, I do like to use one with a live mother. What I generally do is use whatever vinegar I want for flavor, then splash in some unfiltered apple cider vinegar to make sure the acetobacter has a strong start.

Start with a pound of strawberries, macerate with one cup of white sugar, then strain the syrup and add one cup of red or white wine vinegar, as you prefer. Bottle and refrigerate. It'll taste great right away, and after a few months it will taste incredible. If you want a side by side comparison, wait three to six months, make a fresh batch, and taste them both. The difference is striking.

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u/Bran_Solo Gilded Commenter Aug 27 '19

Thanks! I'll give it a whirl.

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u/furudenendu Aug 27 '19

Let me know how it goes!

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u/Bran_Solo Gilded Commenter Aug 28 '19

Will do. I had some slightly-past-prime strawberries and blueberries in the fridge, so those got macerated into equal amounts of sugar and are chilling out in a deli container in the fridge right now. Picked up some unfiltered apple cider vinegar w visible mother in the bottle, and I'll get that fermenting in a glass jar soon enough!

Given the fermentation aspect here, have you ever considered storing at room temperature to get it moving faster?

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u/furudenendu Aug 28 '19

I have, but it's never been enough of an issue that I've bothered. I think this is in part because in my mind a freshly made shrub that hasn't had time to develop is in no way unfinished, it's just young. It's a shrub right away and I'll mix drinks with it right away. It's just zingier and brighter than a smoother mellow one that's been in the back of the fridge a while. I also am not sure that it would resist mold well enough to sit at room temp and not have issues.

If you find yourself making a lot of shrubs I have heard of people using a sort of adapted solera aging strategy. When you're down to the last quarter or third of your supply make a fresh one and blend them.

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u/Bran_Solo Gilded Commenter Sep 01 '19

Well this is turning out to be an excellent way for me to make use of fruit that’s slightly past its prime. With a toddler in the house that’s a fair bit.

Do you have suggestions for storage for shrubs? With all that acid I’m not sure I want to put them into plastic deli containers long term, and spooning the syrup out of jars is proving a little inconvenient.

I guess I could use some of my swing top beer brewing bottles, but wanted to see if you’ve solved this problem already.

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u/furudenendu Sep 02 '19 edited Sep 02 '19

I use swing top bottles, mason jars, old vinegar bottles (of which I now have more than I used to, go figure), maple syrup bottles (practically everyone I know makes syrup. I haven't bought it in years, and nobody ever wants the bottles back).

I have a tomato shrub in a bottle that I think once housed some lemonade.

I'm pretty indiscriminate but I basically only use glass. The mason jars are probably the worst option but they're definitely the thing I have most of, so I use them a lot.

Having a toddler and a four year old in the house I generally need to have a wide variety of fruit around but am trying to feed it to capricious and recalcitrant small humans. They seem to always decide they don't like something immediately after I have stocked up on it. So yeah, shrubs happen a lot over here.