We tend to buy fruity sparkling waters and hard seltzers in cans, but bottles of fruit syrup concentrate are easy to make and stash in your fridge, or freeze in ice trays, for homemade spritzers and cocktails. You can also play with flavors you’re unlikely to find on the store shelf, like the tart–sweet rhubarb syrup I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

The technique for making fruit syrups that you plan to use in beverages is simple. I make them from spring to fall with fresh fruit, cycling through flavors as they ripen. In winter, you can make them with fruit from the freezer in the same way you make Frozen Strawberry Syrup to pour over pancakes or waffles—just don’t let it cook as long to keep it fully pourable.

Learn more about making and using fruit syrups and get the complete recipe for Rhubarb–Vanilla Syrup in my column.

Make it, share it.
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Twice as Tasty

If you’ve been reading my column and following the blog for a few seasons, you’ve probably realized rhubarb is one of my favorite “fruits.” Technically a vegetable, perennial rhubarb grows readily in my climate. We have plants the size of shrubs at Mitchell Farm, where I do most of my gardening, but I keep a couple of plants on my woody, shaded property too, where they put out stalks all summer without ever bolting. My plants are offspring of the ones that my dad tended while I was growing up and that fed my love of rhubarb from childhood.

Here are just a few other rhubarb recipes on the blog. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Rhubarb–Rosemary Rum
• Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub
• Rhubarb–Rosemary Sorbet
• Rhubarb–Apple Crisp
• Huckleberry–Rhubarb Galette
• Rhubarb Curd
• Rhubarb–Earl Grey Jam
• Rhubarb–Orange–Ginger Marmalade

I also recently worked on a rhubarb recipe for Taste of Home: Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler. You can find more of my work off the blog here.

These recipes all sweeten the tart stalks, but rhubarb can be used in savory dishes too. For my pickling cookbook, I created recipes for Rhubarb Kimchi and Fermented Rhubarb Pickles that make the most of the naturally tart taste.

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.