If you’d walked into my kitchen late last night, you would have found me turning some of summer’s first fruit into a batch of shrub. A drinking shrub, as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, is an old DIY beverage that fans of today’s sparking water and hard seltzers should have on their radar. The combination of fruit, vinegar, and sugar into a concentrate that is then diluted with fizzy water to taste packs a flavor punch and quenches thirst of hot summer days. Mix in a couple of shots of alcohol and you end up with a sparkling evening cocktail.

I usually have several shrub flavors in my fridge, made with the current bumper crop of fresh fruit or whatever I squirreled away in the freezer for the off-season. Although I find strawberries too sweet to pair with rhubarb in desserts and jams, the vinegar in a shrub balances this popular combination for my taste buds.

Learn more about making drinking shrubs and get the complete recipe for Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub in my column.

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Once you understand the basics of making a shrub, you too will find so many flavor combinations in your garden, berry patch, and orchard or at a local farmer’s market. My master recipe for shrubs made with raw fruit can be used for many combinations. You can also use cooked fruit, like you would for a fruit syrup, which can help to release the juice from hard, dense produce. For an even richer flavor, roast the fruit in an oven. Even some vegetables can be used fresh or roasted in shrubs, like cucumbers or beets.

Here are a few of my favorite shrub variations. Look at other syrups, jams, and sorbets in the recipe index for additional flavor ideas.

• Strawberry–Balsamic Shrub, which you can find in my cookbook, The Complete Guide to Pickling, blends strawberries with a couple of types of vinegar and black peppercorns for a hint of spice.
• Roasted Raspberry–Thyme Shrub, also in my pickling cookbook, adds a little extra sweetness by mixing in apple cider vinegar.
• Watermelon–Basil Shrub pairs delicate fresh basil leaves with just the juice from a watermelon, leaving the solids to turn into a delicious sorbet.

You can also learn more about using shrubs as cocktail mixers in this recipe.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.