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Orange and Lemon Shrub
by James Chatto
Is there room for a shrub in the garden? There is when it's this kind of shrub. Shrubs are an 18th-century English invention involving the slow maceration of fruit with sugar in alcohol. In the days before cocktails, shrub was a good way to make poor-quality rum or brandy more interesting and old recipes talk of gallons and quarts and oak barrels and letting the finished product mature for at least a week but sometimes as long as two months. After much experimentation, I can report that a good shrub can be made without a great deal of fuss. The trick is in removing the zest (the coloured part of the rind) from the fruit without adding the bitter white pith.
Zest of an orange
Juice of 2 oranges
Zest of a lemon
Juice of 2 lemons
1 cup sugar
1 bottle (750 mL) amber rum
Ice
Chilled soda water
1. In a saucepan, combine the zests, juices and sugar and heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool. Add rum and seal in a jar in the fridge. Leave for at least a week.
2. To serve, strain 2 oz shrub into a tumbler, add ice cubes and a splash of soda water.
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