Lavender blueberry shrub cocktail, anyone? Your answer should always be, YES PLEASE. A shrub is part fruit, part sugar, and part vinegar. In the olden days, shrubs were used to preserve fruit before it spoiled. Now, we just like to drink them because they are delicious. Because of the vinegar base, shrubs are tart and tangy…think more along the lines of a good kombucha. Shrubs can be consumed alone, with sparkling water, or in a cocktail. We prefer a cocktail after a long, hot day on the farm 😉
Summers at the farm are go, go, GO! Even when we’re busting our butts out in the mid-missouri heat and humidity for what seems like 100% of our time, there’s always another run we can make with the lawnmower, always more of our lavender babies to be harvested, or always more patches of grass that need to be hit with the weed eater. That’s farming life for ya. BUT, whew! When you step back and see the well manicured grass, the abundance of lavender bundles hanging to dry, and clean edges that only a weed eater can produce…it’s pure magic owning this lavender farm.
This is where the shrub cocktail comes in. Adding lavender creates a “full-circle” aspect to this shrub cocktail for us while sipping on after a hard day’s work, but it is also quite tasty. Let’s get to the good part, shall we?
LAVENDER BLUEBERRY SHRUB | our cocktail add-ins at bottom
serves 10 | recipe from garden cocktail.co
Ingredients:
1 pint blueberries
1 cup sugar
8-10 sprigs of lavender
1 cup apple cider vinegar
Instructions:
1. Place blueberries and sugar into a medium bowl. Crush the berries, and then stir to combine.
2. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Allow to macerate for up to 2 days.
3. Meanwhile, place lavender into a nonreactive container, cover with cider vinegar, and store in a cool, dark place for up to 2 days. (The fridge is fine, but unnecessary)
4. Position a fine-mesh strainer over a small bowl and pour blueberry mixture through to remove solids.
5. Strain vinegar mixture over the same mesh strainer, into same bowl as blueberry syrup. Allow to combine.
6. You may have some sugar clinging to the berry solids in the strainer. If so, set the strainer with the solids over another small bowl. Pour the syrup-and-vinegar mixture over the solids to wash the sugar into the bowl. Repeat as needed.
7. Pour syrup-and-vinegar mixture into a clean mason jar. Cap it, shake it well to incorporate any undissolved sugar, and place in the refrigerator for a week before using.
Discard the solids or save them for another use.
FOR COCKTAIL:
2 oz rum
1 oz shrub
3 oz tonic
Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy. You deserve it.