My raspberry bushes are buzzing with bees and will soon be dripping with fruit. I’m already making plans for the fresh berries – and using up last year’s frozen ones before they arrive.
Frozen berries lose their delicate shape when thawed but taste as delicious as fresh. As I explained with my recipe for Blackberry-Orange-Basil Sorbet, thawed berries’ pulp and juices separate easily. A thick, seed-free liquid sets up best as sorbet, so you puree and then strain the berries. To collect just the juice, simply thaw the berries, pour them into a strainer set over a bowl and stir until they stop dribbling.
I use this simple process to collect juice from frozen raspberries for a drinking shrub, a blend of fruit juice, sugar and vinegar infused with botanicals. Fresh berries and other fruit make equally tasty shrubs but need help releasing their juices. Mixing a little sugar into the fruit and letting sit draws out more liquid than stirring alone, so I add this step for fresh raspberries and Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub.
A drinking shrub starts as an intensely lip-puckering concentrate with a long fridge life. A splash of shrub concentrate in a glass of soda water becomes refreshing homemade sparkling water. It can also flavor ice tea or lemonade.
Upscale shrubs to on-the-rocks mocktails by diluting the concentrate to taste with seltzer or club soda and adding a salted or sugared rim and garnish. Shrubs make delicious cocktail mixers as well. Pair golden raspberry-cilantro shrub with tequila, mezcal or agave spirit and red raspberry-mint shrub with gin.
Raspberry Shrub Mocktail or Cocktail
Makes about 2-1/2 cups of concentrate
For the concentrate:
2 pounds raspberries, fresh or frozen
1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/3 cup if using fresh berries
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 sprig fresh cilantro or mint
For 1 mocktail or cocktail:
1 ounce shrub concentrate
4 ounces seltzer
2 ounces tequila or gin (optional)
Sprig of fresh cilantro or mint for garnish
Place the fresh or frozen berries in a large bowl; if fresh, stir in 1/3 cup of sugar. Cover the bowl with a lid or tea towel and let it macerate or thaw in the refrigerator for a day.
Set a fine-mesh colander over a large glass measuring cup. Pour in the berry mixture, in stages if needed, to strain the juice from the solids. Stir and press the berries with a spoon to separate as much juice as possible; you should have about 1-1/2 cups of juice. Set the solids aside for another use.
Pour the shrub concentrate into a clean jar or bottle. Add the cilantro or mint, seal with a nonreactive lid and shake well to combine. Refrigerate for one day, and then remove the herb sprig. The shrub will keep refrigerated for up to a year.
For one serving, in a cocktail glass filled with ice, stir together the shrub concentrate, seltzer and tequila or gin, if desired. Taste and adjust the balance as needed before adding the herb garnish.
Julie Laing is a Bigfork-based cookbook author and food blogger at TwiceAsTasty.com.