Plum Shrub Cocktail

Well it’s a crummy winter in Australia, lots of rain, cool winds, our house is leaking so frankly playing around with cocktails in the kitchen is what's keeping us entertained this awful season. Recently we've become obsessed with shrub in our cocktails, so obsessed we’ve decided to put our best foot forward and give it a try too.

Welcoming the… Plum Shrub Cocktail.

You might be wondering ‘What’s a shrub? And ‘why do I want it in my cocktail?’. Well there’s lots of reasons, firstly it’s a great alternative for adding acidity to a drink, if you’re sick of using the same old citrus, making a shrub is a perfect substitute. You can use many different fruits and making a shrub results in very strong flavours, for explample we’re making a plum shrub, a flavour that would usually be weak in a cocktail, turing it into a shrub boldens the flavour. Oh and lastly, while there is lots of sugar in a shrub, it’s less than sugar syrup, so it’s a good way to use less sugar in your sweet cocktails.

You’ll need Clementine’s American Gin: This is a floral gin and it compliments the acidity and fruitiness of the drink, making for bursts of fresh flavours. It’s like drinking a plum grove and a flower patch all in one (trust us its surprisingly appealing). Ground Cardamom: A great thing about shrubs is that they utalise spices as well and cardamom is always a great spice in a cocktail, leaving for a subtle aftertaste. Limes: Using a little less Vinager than a regular shrub, we make up the difference with lime! Apple Cider Vinegar: Some of the recipes online use regular vinager but we’re different at Unexpected Guest (Just don’t use white wine or red wine vinger). Ground Pepper: Ground pepper, whole pepper corns, crushed pepper corns, just get some pepper in there. Plums: no matter the season or the colour of plums, you’ll need a big bag of them. Soda Water: This is for the cocktail not the shrub, but if you want to change up the drink even more, check out our tips at the bottom of the page.

Plum Shrub Recipe:

Ingredients:

Pinch of Ground Cardamom

100ml Lime Juice

400ml Apple Cider Vinegar

Pinch of Ground Black Peppercorns

200g of Caster Sugar

500g Plums

Method:

Slice up your plums so there’s no seeds, add to a large jar you can close and make sure is airtight.

Add the sugar, cardamom, lime juice, apple cider vinegar and pepper.

Stir until the sugar starts to dissolve.

Keep in the fridge for one week, turning the jar every day to ensure the shrub is mixing evenly.

After one week, strain out the liquid, you can keep the plums as garnish or throw them away, bottle the liquid and keep for up to one week in the fridge.

Cocktail Recipe:

Ingredients:

60ml Plum Shrub

30ml Clementines American Gin

Soda water

Ice

Method:

Combine the Plum Shrub, Gin and Ice in a cocktail shaker.

Shake and strain over fresh ice in a tumbler glass.

Top with soda water.

Garnish with plum slices left over from the plum shrub.

Enjoy and drink responsibly

Tip:

Sub out Soda Water for Lemonade or Prosecco!