Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

Drinking Vinegars: What They Are and Why You Should Drink Them

Shandana A. Durrani
By

drinking vinegars
Image used with permission by copyright holder
For centuries, people around the world have been drinking vinegar to ward off ailments such as indigestion and chronic fatigue. In the United States, drinking vinegars were (and are) commonly known as shrubs and date to the 1700s. In addition to curing ailments, drinking vinegars were (eventually) used in cocktails, which is how after decades of relative obscurity shrubs are back on menus across the country.

On their own, drinking vinegars are a great alternative to sugary drinks like soda. In cocktails, shrubs are often used to replace citrus, as shrubs do not cloud when shaken in a drink.

Recommended Videos

If you’re interested in trying drinking vinegars, there are a couple that you can pick up in stores or online.

Pok Pok Som Chef Andy Ricker of Pok Pok fame created Pok Pok Som in 2005 for use in specialty cocktails. Customers loved it so much the restaurant began serving it with a splash of soda water on the rocks. Som comes in a variety of flavors, from ginger to apple to rhubarb and tamarind. Nothing is ever too sweet so even the sweeter-sounding flavors won’t make you feel as if you’re drinking syrup. New York City’s PDT recently used Pok Pok Som in a specialty cocktail. Ask for the Som Collins.

Genki Su Drinking vinegar has long been a tradition in Japan, dating back to feudal times. Genki Su, created by Japanese-American Takako Shinjo, offers four varieties of handcrafted drinking vinegars flavored with fruit and herbs such as apple and shiso (a Japanese herb similar to mint) and sweetened with honey and Stevia, making them a low-calorie alternative to soft drinks.

McClary Brothers Michigan-based McClary Brothers uses local herbs and fruit in its drinking vinegars, which are made in small batches. The apothecary-style bottles hold a selection of specialty flavors including pineapple and fennel, apple pie, and rhubarb. Seasonal flavors rotate throughout the year and most are tart with a bit of an earthy undertone. McClary suggests mixing the vinegars with bourbon, whiskey or rum for cocktails, or soda for a healthy tonic.

Suja Organic and non-GMO, San Diego, California-based Suja’s drinking vinegars are cold-pressed juices, made from a mixture of apple cider vinegar and coconut vinegar, and come in eight different flavors, including flavors like Strawberry Balsamic, Lemon Cayenne, and Ginger Turmeric.

Or, for the adventurous and creatives ones out there, you can make your own. Michael Dietsch’s book Shrubs is a perfect introduction into the beverage in addition to giving plenty of recipes for how to make them.

(Updated on 1/17/17)

Editors' Recommendations

Shandana A. Durrani
Shandana A. Durrani
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Shandana A. Durrani has been a magazine editor and travel writer for more than two decades. Her work has appeared in numerous…
This is why you add water to whiskey (plus, our best tips)
Why adding water to whiskey works
Whiskey in a glass

We aren’t in the business of telling you how to enjoy your whiskey. Whether you like it mixed into a classic cocktail, neat, on the rocks, imbibed out of a ram’s horn, or even an old shoe you found by the railyard (although we’d probably advise against that if possible), we don’t care. That’s your prerogative. But, depending on the whiskey, there are a few ways to heighten the experience.

One of the best ways to heighten your whiskey-tasting experience is to add water. And no, we aren’t talking about a cup of water; we’re talking about a few splashes. Why should you do this? Keep reading, and you’ll never look at whiskey and water the same way again.
The whiskey-tasting experience

Read more
Don’t make this super common mistake when chilling wine in an ice bucket
Chill your wine easily without the need for any expensive equipment.
Rose wine in ice bucket

When it comes to chilling wine, there are countless ways to get the job done. The market is saturated with products made specifically for cooling wine down to the perfect drinking temperature, from luxurious wine refrigerators to elegant marble wine chillers. We can almost guarantee that the passionate wine lover in your life probably has a pantry full of these fancy contraptions, each one more exciting (and expensive) than the last. After all, wine is an art and enjoying it at the correct temperature is an absolute must. At the end of the day, though, even with all the bells and whistles, it's hard to beat a good old-fashioned ice bath - especially when trying to cool down that wine in a hurry. But, as simple as this wine-chilling technique may be, it is possible to get it wrong. That's why we've collected a few tips and tricks for getting that wine chilled exactly right every time.
Order matters when chilling wine

While the more aesthetically pleasing option may be to fill your favorite wine chilling bucket with ice and simply nestle in your favorite bottle or two, this method is actually pretty ineffective when it comes to chilling wine in a pinch. By dumping ice into a container and plopping the wine on top, only the bottom half of the bottle will actually chill. It's important to fully cover your wine (or other beverage) bottles with ice so that the entire bottle has a chance to actually get cold. Do this by putting your bottle(s) in the bucket first, and then topping with ice - not the other way around. The more the bottle is covered with ice, the better. While this might not get you the sexiest photo shoot of your wine luxuriously resting in an ice bath, it's the better way to get the contents cold.
Use water and...salt?

Read more
These are the 10 most popular cocktails in the U.S.
The ten most popular cocktails might surprise you
most popular cocktails friends toasting with

You might not realize it, but there was a time when Americans weren’t so into cocktails. You couldn’t visit seemingly any city or town and find a few cocktail bars to visit. Your best option was a swanky hotel bar or a local bartender who happened to know how to make a whiskey sour. This all changed during the cocktail renaissance of the early aughts. More bartenders and drinkers got excited about rediscovering long-forgotten drinks while breathing new life into some that they took for granted.

Fast-forward to today, when bartenders are the new celebrity chefs of the world, and cocktail bars continue to pop up everywhere from Bakersfield to Baton Rouge. Wouldn’t you like to know what cocktails drinkers enjoy more than others in this now mixed-drink-saturated country? Thanks to NielsenIQ, you can.

Read more