Shrubs - tasty, healthy drinks made with vinegar - are making a comeback

The Seattle Times - HAVE YOU COME across any great shrubs this summer? Not the small bushes, but the vinegar-fruit syrup that is, shall we say, cropping up in cocktails and nonalcoholic drinks alike. Who would drink vinegar? People have been doing it for thousands of years, even though it might seem like the latest trend in a glass.

To learn about shrubs, I turned to beverage rock star Anna Wallace. Wallace ran the bar at The Walrus and the Carpenter before starting Seattle Seltzer Co. This summer she introduced the beverage program at Chop Shop Café & Bar in the newly opened Chophouse Row on Capitol Hill.

Wallace began making shrubs and sodas several years ago.

“The tangy and sweet combination in a shrub lends a deeper flavor profile to drinks,” she says. “Drinking fermented fruit is good for you, whereas drinking commercial soda is not.”

The word shrub is said to come from the Arabic sharbah, which means “a drink.” Vinegar-based drinks have long been considered to possess medicinal properties and cooling effects. Before refrigeration, people also fermented fruits and vegetables to preserve them and used the resulting syrup in drinks.