Over the years, I’ve shared a few of my favorite recipes for shrubs here on Hobby Farms. I’ve even shared a recipe for rhubarb shrub, as well as a strawberry vanilla shrub, but never before the combo of strawberry and rhubarb shrub.
As you can imagine, this is a winning combo. A refreshing strawberry rhubarb shrub is a great way to use up some of your rhubarb and fresh strawberries that are finally ripening here in our northern gardens. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!
Yield: 3 to 4 cups finished shrub
Ingredients
- 2 total cups rhubarb and strawberries, chopped (fresh or frozen). Discard green leaves of the rhubarb, as they are poisonous, and hull the berries.
- 2 cups white granulated sugar
- Days later: 2 cups organic apple cider vinegar (or other drinking vinegar of choice)
Directions
Wash strawberries and rhubarb, removing any bruised or damaged parts. Prep rhubarb and strawberries, and add them to a clean quart jar. Pour in sugar. Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean dampened towel to remove any sugar or fruit juice, apply the canning jar lid, and tightly screw on the ring.
Shake the jar vigorously to mix the strawberries, rhubarb and sugar together.
Store the jar at room temperature, out of direct sunlight. Allow the mixture to macerate over a couple days until a thick syrup is made. A few times per day, shake the mixture to speed up the process (or you can use a clean spoon to stir well).
After two to three days, once the sugar has dissolved and a syrup is made, use a fine mesh strainer to strain out the solids, reserving the syrup in a measuring cup. Use the back of a spoon to push out any excess syrup. Once strained, measure the amount of syrup that was collected and add that same amount of vinegar to the syrup (it will be 1.5 to 2 cups of vinegar), stir well to mix.
Store your strawberry rhubarb shrub in a clean, airtight jar and refrigerate. Enjoy within a few months for best flavor.
To Serve
Mix about one shot glass of the shrub mixture with water or carbonated water. Serve over ice. Shrubs also make delicious and unique cocktail mixers.
Side Notes
You can also use brown sugar, coconut sugar, maple syrup or other sugar alternative in place of white granulated sugar.
This method of shrub-making can be applied to any fruits-and-herb combinations.
Don’t toss the strained-out fruit solids! They are delicious mixed into plain yogurt or oatmeal, or blended into a smoothie.
This recipe was adapted from WECK Small-Batch Preserving (2018) with permission from Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
