The Real Know How

How-Tos, Videos, Tutorials — Ramping Up for the 21st Century

Archive for the tag “vinegar”

Make Ginger Vinegar Cordial or Shrub

A shrub is an old-time drink with an acidic base, in this case vinegar. The shrubs I’ve read about call for fruit.

Pairing fruit with vinegar was a way of preserving it without refrigeration, so that, for example, you could have a berry drink in winter, when berries would otherwise not be available.

Julie, in New South Wales, Australia made a ginger flavored version based on this recipe and writes:

“The cordials are generally drunk diluted about 1:10 with water, soda water or rum; we tried ours with lemonade because we had an open bottle in the fridge which needed drinking.

Damn! It’s good!

Sorta kinda like a cross between lemon/lime bitters and ginger ale, to my palate (with the lemonade that is). The cider vinegar gives it a tang on your tongue which feels deceptively alcoholic, except of course, it isn’t, so I reckon it would make the base for an excellent mocktail.

So easy to make too”

Ingredients you’ll need: vinegar, a flavoring (here it’s ginger) and sugar.

Julie notes that “To make a berry shrub, substitute 1½ cups raspberries, blackberries or blueberries for the ginger and reduce the cider vinegar to 2/3 cup for blueberries and ½ cup for raspberries and blackberries.”

Click here to view the full ginger shrub tutorial.

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Using Vinegar in Your Garden

Howard Garrett talks about how to use vinegar in your garden. He uses it heavily diluted in the water he uses to water plants and in concentrated form with orange oil and soap as an organic herbicide for weeds.

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