Peach and Thyme Shrub
Ripe peaches macerated in sugar then cut with vinegar into a tart, fruit-forward syrup — a spoonful over ice and soda water is the whole drink.
- Serves
- 12
- Prep
- 15 min (plus 2 days macerating)
- Cook
- 5 min
- Written
Method
-
Toss the peaches with the sugar and salt in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate.
-
Let macerate for 2 days, stirring once a day, until the fruit has slumped and given up a thick, syrupy juice.
-
Strain the syrup into a saucepan, pressing hard on the peaches to get out as much liquid as possible; save the spent fruit for something else, it’s good stirred into yogurt.
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Add the vinegar and thyme to the saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
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Simmer until the sharp vinegar smell mellows and the kitchen smells like warm thyme instead, about 5 minutes.
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Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature with the thyme still steeping in it.
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Strain out the thyme, pour the shrub into a clean jar or bottle, and refrigerate.
Notes
A shrub is just fruit, sugar, and vinegar — a way of keeping summer fruit going long after it would otherwise turn, using acid instead of the freezer. The two-day macerate matters more than the five minutes on the stove: it’s what pulls the juice out of the peaches on its own, so the syrup tastes like fruit and not like boiled fruit.
Two tablespoons in a glass of ice and soda water is the baseline drink; it also takes well to bourbon or gin if you want something stronger, or a spoonful whisked into a vinaigrette. It keeps for a couple of months in the fridge — the vinegar is doing the preserving, so there’s no rush to use it up. Other stone fruit or soft berries work the same way if peaches aren’t in season.