Persimmon Shrub for Cocktails & Homemade Soda

Shrubs are all the rage at the moment – and understandably so.  They are the best way to literally bottle up the flavor of summer or capture the elusive taste of fall.  Shrubs were the original way to preserve fruit before canning came along and became a thing.

Ripe Fuyu Persimmons

Basically when it comes down to it, a shrub is a sweet fruit vinegar that is concentrated and when it gets mixed with other liquids (water, club soda, ginger ale, alcohol) blends into a subtle potion that traps the essence of whatever fruit it was made from.

When you talk to the hardcore “shrubber” – a term I just decided to coin and will not just apply to the Monty Python Boys anymore….  Anyway. When you talk to the hardcore shrubber, they will tell you that a true shrub is tart, sweet and refreshing all blended into one perfect mix.  They might also tell you that you should be making your fruit vinegar from scratch using wild yeasts.  I choose to ignore that last bit since I want my persimmon shrub that much sooner.

Rough Chopped Persimmons ready for “Shrubbing” – again a term I *may* have made up

Like a lot of our recipes (like this Caramelized Onion Recipe and this Butter Parsley Pasta Sauce), time is as much an ingredient as anything.  The stronger you want your shrub to be, the longer you need to let it sit in a cool place (read: refrigerator).

Since I just got a case of persimmons and stuffed my face full of this Persimmon & Pear Salad already, I had to come up with something else to do with them before they dove off the cliff into inedible.  Since shrubs were good enough for preserving fruit back in the day, I figured I would give it a swing.

Vinegar boiling – but only just

Persimmon Shrub Recipe for Homemade Sodas or Cocktails

Ingredients: 

• 5 ripe Fuyu Persimmons, rough chopped
• 3 cups White Vinegar
• 2 cups Cane Sugar
• Your choice of club soda, ginger ale, water, gin, vodka, or any combination as a mixer

Method:

They key to being able to store your shrub for a long time is to disinfect the jar that you will be storing it in.  Use a 1 quart jar with a tight fitting lid (I used a Ball Canning Jar).  Submerge it in water and boil for 10 minutes to sterilize.  Dunk the lid and canning ring in the hot water for a moment as well.

While the jar is coming to a boil, wash, core and rough chop the persimmons.  You can leave the skin on.  (I love recipes where I don’t have to peel things)

A watched pot doesn’t boil so they say, and the pot that you are sterilizing the jar in most likely isn’t boiling yet.  So, move on to the next step: heating the vinegar.  The goal isn’t to bring it to a hard boil – just to get it hot.  Put it in a small sauce pan and heat until bubbles are just starting to appear.  Oh, and don’t put your face right over the hot vinegar and inhale the fumes by accident when you are checking on another pot.  Don’t do it… I managed to make my sense of smell cower in a corner after that one.

Pouring the hot Vinegar over the Persimmons. Won’t tell you what I went through to get this shot…

Pull the quart jar after it has had a chance to fully sterilize, dump the water out, load the chopped persimmons in there and pour the hot vinegar on top.  Screw on the lid and pop into your fridge.  Whew! That was a lot of instructions all at once.

Persimmons on their way to becoming a full fledged Shrub

Now we play the waiting game.  This is where the time comes in to work it’s magic.  You’ll want to leave your persimmon/vinegar potion in the fridge for at least a week and up to a month for the flavors to really infuse.

Cheesecloth for straining – it works better if it is wet

When you’ve had enough of the waiting game (mine lasted all of a week), pull your infusion out of the fridge and strain the fruit out of the vinegar in a strainer through  cheesecloth – doing just that a couple of times until the vinegar is clear.

Straining the fruit. It will smell scarily of vinegar. Don’t be afraid.

The fruit can be used in a salad or in this Olive Tapanade.  The vinegar will go into a sauce pan with the sugar.  Bring to a boil, dissolve the sugar and remove from the heat.

Ice just waiting for soda water & Persimmon Shrub

Next, let it cool and pour into a clean, sterilized jar.  It will be tempting to just dump it back into the jar it just came from, but resist.  Your shrub will last longer in a new, clean jar.  Tightly seal and keep in the fridge for up to 3 months.

Persimmon Shrub in a homemade soda with fresh muddled sage

To use:

• Add a splash – like 2 tablespoons worth of a splash, to a glass with some club soda and ice for a lovely, homemade ‘G’ rated drink.  Kick it up to PG by adding a splash of cream for an Italian Soda

Persimmon Shrub Italian Soda – classed up with a bit of cream

• Use as a mixer (along with either club soda or tonic) for more adult beverages – I imagine that Gin would make this shrub sing.  We had some Beehive Distilling Jack Rabbit Gin around the house for an upcoming recipe…
• Cook it down further until it is a syrupy reduction and drizzle over ice cream.  All the flavors will be so concentrated, you’ll want to use a simple rich vanilla ice cream to highlight them