Spiced Blood Orange Shrub & Soda

Happy New Year! I’ve had such a slow and restful start to 2022. I’m not overly consumed with new goals or resolutions, just keeping my focus on finding joy where I can. I have several friends participating in Dry January so thought I’d offer up a mocktail for my first post of the year. I happened upon a recipe for a spiced blood orange shrub from Bon Appetit that looked promising. You start by making a syrup with fresh ginger, blood orange zest, sugar, cinnamon, whole cloves and water, which you later combine with fresh blood orange juice and apple cider vinegar to create the shrub. For the mocktail, you simply combine with club soda over ice. And guess what? It actually tastes like a cocktail! As in DOES NOT SUCK! The apple cider vinegar gives it just the right amount of funk that makes up for the lacking alcohol. And I don’t mean funk in a bad way. So much of what I enjoy about cocktails has less to do with getting buzzed and more to do with enjoying the interesting and sometimes funky flavors in spirits. If you do want to add booze, it would be very easy to add whiskey or vodka for an easy cocktail.

Spiced Blood Orange Shrub & Soda

Ingredients:

4 - blood oranges

1 - 1'“ piece of ginger, peeled and chopped

1 - 3'“ cinnamon stick, broken in a few pieces

6 whole cloves

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup water

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Club soda, for serving

Method:

To prepare shrub, peel the zest from 2 blood oranges. Combine the peeled and chopped ginger, cinnamon stick, cloves, sugar and blood orange zest with a cup of water in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring. Once the sugar is dissolved, reduce the heat and continue to cook until the mixture is reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for about 30 minutes. While the syrup is cooling, juice the blood oranges and strain, removing any pulp or seeds. Should be about one cup of juice.

Strain the syrup through a mesh strainer into a glass measuring cup. Add the vinegar and the blood orange juice to the syrup. Now you’ve got your shrub!

To make the mocktail: pour 3 tablespoons shrub into a collins glass filled with ice. Top with about 5 ounces of club soda. Garnish with a twist of blood orange zest, if desired. Cheers!

Recipe adapted slightly from Bon Appetit, November 23, 2021