Thank you!
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I’ve been making tomato shrub. Most recipes call for macerating the tomato, and maybe pepper with sugar, and the celery, or basil with vinegar. Does anyone know why the basil or celery leaves can’t go in with the tomato and sugar?
Tomato with celery. Same recipe as the one in Shrubs: An Old-Fashioned Drink for Modern Times (Second Edition) by Michael Dietsch and Paul Clarke.
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From Mastering Fermentation by way f Sunset; DIY shrubs.
http://www.masteringfermentation.com/press/SunsetMagFeb2014_Shrubs.pdf
When I make a pineapple shrub I use 3 or 6 pineapples. After I strain it, the cooked pineapple is delicious. So… Pickled Pineapple Jam. It’s quite popular with our customers.
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I also made my first blueberry shrub last year. Bottled it, stuck it in the fridge, and apparently promptly forgot about it until a month or so ago. I was re-using a kombucha bottle, and mistook this for another bottle of kombucha I had opened and left in the fridg. Ended up taking a big swig out of it. LOL, that was quite a surprise! I would just dilute a small amount into a glass of cold water to get cool, refreshing fruity drink and the shrub was still good. 
Making another batch of this right now.
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Sounds good! I’ve been drinking some from last year as well, although no big swigs!
Do you know about how much sugar and vinegar for three pinapples?
Also, if I may ask; what kind of customers?
Oh! I think I figured it out. 
Nice!
My basic recipe is 8 cups fruit & juice, 4 cups sugar & 5 cups apple cider vinegar. You can cook it or macerate it. Then strain through a fine colander or strainer, then strain through a double layer of cheesecloth.
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This years tomato shrub, made with Sweet Sue (yellow) tomatoes, lemon basil, and apple cider vinegar. Macerated tomatoes and basil in vinegar 2 days apart then together for a week , then strained. It already tastes pretty good!
I threw together cherry, pluot and maybe Blenheim apricot shrubs about a month ago, but didn’t take notes or pictures.
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I seem to recognize some of this from other sources.
Hi @shrinkrap, I’ve seen you mention tomato shrubs a few times and was wondering if you could share a successful recipe you’ve used? I have plenty of cherry tomatoes and basil, I’ve seen a few recipes that marinade the basil in the vinegar but then they seem to diverge in the amounts of sugar they use or whether water is added. Any tips?
Edited to add, I missed your tomato and celery link above. Maybe I’ll just follow that but with basil.
Hi!
I might have to get back to you with details, but off the top of my head, I’ve been using a book called something like “Shrubs: An old fashioned drink for modern times” by Michael Dietrich, using his “cold shrub” method, that allows for me to procrastinate, and take small steps, with ratio of about one pound of tomatoes for 1/2 cup of sugar.
I think it adds the additional flavors ( for example celery or basil) by steeping them separately in the vinegar.
This is my most recent rendition; a yellow tomato version. The one from the August 24 th picture, but strained about a week ago.
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Thanks, I’ve kicked off by combining the basil and cider vinegar overnight until tomorrow. I’m going to macerate a pound (edit: I meant two pounds) of cherry tomatoes in a cup of sugar and leave that out overnight as well. Just got to decide how to crush them.
Looking forward to tasting the final result in a week or so. I’ve only made a shrub once before, out of a pitiful amount of plums our tree produced.
Surprisingly for round these parts the local shop had quite the range of cider vinegars. I could have made it with pasteurised or raw vinegar, I guess the difference might be that the remaining vinegar mother would continue to convert the added/tomato sugars into more vinegar.
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That seems like a higher ratio of sugar to tomato than the recipes I’ve been using but I’ve seen a lot of variations, and sometimes when I’m in a hurry I just “wing it”; please let us know how it goes!
Here is a list of ingredients I copied from my Eat My Books version of the shrub cookbook.
- basil
- apple cider vinegar
- turbinado sugar
- Sun Gold tomatoes
It’s a pound of cherry tomatoes with 1/2 cup sugar in a jar, and a fistful of bruised basil leaves and about 1/2 cup vinegar in a jar, leave them separate for a day or two, then combined for a week, and then strain. The tomatoes are halved, and refrigerated with the sugar.
I usually have Bragg acv on hand, so that’s what I use, but the book describes a variety of both vinegar and sugar options. There about three tomatoe shrub rdcipes and they mostly list acv (apple cider vinegar).
Here is a link to a recipe online, but it’s heated. I’ve never tried a heated one.
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Sorry! I meant 2 pounds of tomatoes to 1 cup of sugar, I’ve gone with your suggestion. I’ll be back to report how it turns out.
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We use ACV in all our shrubs. Among the many complications of the Covid era, our supply chain has just been shredded. First it was pint jars, then pectin got scarce, then quart jars disappeared & last week pint lids suddenly got scarce. We package our shrubs in what are called ‘hock’ bottles. It’s a tall elegant bottle which is usually used for dessert wines. Shrubs are one of our higher priced items & the hock bottle gives it a really elegant look. Well, for two months they have been totally unavailable. However, my best supplier called me yesterday to tell me she found 300 hocks. I got so excited…
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How do you cap your “hock bottles”?
We hot pack them & cork them with a t-bar. Then they get shrink sealed with a sleeve.
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Hmmmmm…I know what a cork is. 
I’ll look it up.
