RASPBERRY VINEGAR

is a preparation of raspberry juice, vinegar and sugar. It is best made by filling jars with carefully gathered, very ripe berries, adding all the vinegar they will hold, setting to stand for eight or ten days, and then carefully pouring off the liquid. This process is sometimes repeated three times--the same liquid, but fresh fruit being employed. Finally comes a gentle boiling for five minutes with an equal weight of refined sugar, and then bottling. As a flavoring for either plain or carbonated water, used in the same way as any other fruit syrup, it makes a refreshing summer beverage.

For the Modern Kitchen

An encyclopedia entry rather than a formal recipe, but the method is complete enough to follow. It describes what is usually called a shrub or drinking vinegar, and the proportions are given by weight rather than volume.

The hinge: weight, not volumeThe only fixed ratio is the last step, an equal weight of sugar to the strained liquid. Weigh the drained infusion, then weigh out the same in sugar.
Vinegar to useStandard 5 percent cider or white wine vinegar. The acidity is what preserves the fruit during the long steep, so do not use a diluted "salad vinegar" or anything under 5 percent.
VesselGlass or glazed stoneware only. Vinegar left standing ten days will attack copper, brass, aluminium and unlined tinware, and old books frequently warn of it. Cover the jar rather than sealing it hard.
The repeated infusionPouring the same liquid over two or three successive batches of fresh berries gives a deeper colour and flavour. Some liquid stays behind in the drained fruit at each pass, so the yield will vary.
"Refined sugar"Ordinary white granulated. In 1911 this distinguished it from unrefined or brown sugars, which would muddy the colour and flavour.
The five-minute boilGentle means gentle: bring it just to a simmer, stir until the sugar dissolves, skim the foam, and hold it five minutes. A hard rolling boil dulls the fresh raspberry aroma the whole exercise is meant to capture.
StorageBottling hot into clean bottles is not the same as canning. Treat the result as a refrigerator syrup; it keeps for months cold thanks to the acid and sugar, but it is not shelf-stable in the modern sense.
ServingAbout one part syrup to six or eight parts cold or carbonated water, adjusted to taste. It also works as the acid in a vinaigrette, or spooned over ice cream.

A Little History

Fruit vinegars of this kind belong to the family of drinks called shrubs, from the Arabic sharab, a drink or beverage, and they were a standard summer refreshment in British and American households through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when vinegar and sugar were the reliable way to hold a soft fruit that spoils within days of picking. Raspberry vinegar in particular had a double life: bottled as a cordial for haymakers and hot afternoons, and kept in the sick-room, where it was commonly given diluted for feverishness and sore throats. Its appearance in a grocers' reference work of 1911 reflects the trade side of the story, since by then raspberry vinegar was also a commercial syrup sold to soda fountains alongside the other fruit syrups, which is exactly the use the entry recommends.