Quick Summary: Three cocktails using homemade tomato shrub syrup: a signature Bloody Mary, a tomato martini, and a tomato-cherry daiquiri. Tomato shrub adds depth and complexity that elevates these drinks beyond the standard versions. Includes basics on making shrub syrups. Prep: 10 min | Serves: 1 per cocktail
Jump to: RECIPE | Shrub Syrup Basics | A Fruity Shrub | Martini | Daquiri | Bloody Mary | FAQ
Last year I smoked much of September’s heirloom tomato harvest from HeathGlen Organic Farm, then froze them for winter stews and sauces. This year I’m preserving smoked tomatoes as shrub syrups instead.
A shrub syrup is a concentrated mixture of fruit, sugar, and vinegar that adds depth and complexity to cocktails and mocktails. The tomato version doesn’t work for Italian sodas like fruity shrubs do, but it makes a stellar Bloody Mary, an unusual martini, and a surprisingly good daiquiri.
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Basics of a Shrub Syrup:
A shrub syrup is a concentrated syrup made of fruit, sugar and vinegar.
There are various methods of extracting the juice from the fruit (i.e., cold shrubbing vs. hot shrubbing), but the easiest way to think of them is equal parts of the juiced fruit, the sugar and the vinegar, brought to a boil and strained.
If you want to get further into the details of making shrub syrups, check out these guidelines on ratios and methods of homemade shrub syrups.
Popular Uses of “Fruity” Shrub Syrups
Recently there has been a revival of shrub-based drinks, especially in the cocktail world. Shrub syrups can take cocktails to new levels, adding depth and complexity to a drink, especially when bitters are added in.
For non-alcoholic drinks, the popularity of the SodaStream as a replacement for sweet carbonated beverages (i.e., soda pop) is the perfect foil for shrub syrups.
No sodasteam? Just add a few tablespoons of shrub syrups to any kind of fizzy water (club soda, sparkling water, tonic water, etc.) and you have a really nice way to get that much-needed water into your dehydrated body.
Make it as sweet as you want and control the calorie count yourself instead of the soda companies controlling it for you.
There are some specific cocktails that are enhanced and made special with the Tomato shrub syrup. Here are 3 of my favorites:
The Tomato Martini
In a shaker of ice, combine:
- 2 oz gin
- 1/2 oz tomato shrub syrup
- 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
- 2 dashes bitters
Shake ingredients and strain into martini glass. Garnish with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella balls.
Don’t have time to make a homemade tomato shrub syrup? Try this tomato martini made with tomato water from your leftover harvest. It’s lighter and easier.
The Tomato Daquiri
- 1 oz. Citron vodka
- 1/2 oz. Effen Black Cherry Vodka
- 1/2 oz. Smoked Cherry Shrub Syrup
- 1 oz Tomato Shrub Syrup
- 2 dashes cherry bitters
- 1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
In a shaker of ice add all of the above ingredients, shake and strain into glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.
The Tomato Bloody Mary
See the recipe card below for the Signature Bloody Mary made with a tomato shrub syrup. Here are the ingredients laid out on a table:
How to Make the Bloody Mary
The ingredient and recipe details are listed in the recipe card below. In short, grind sea salt and celery salt together for the rim. Muddle dill, cherry tomatoes, jalapeno slices, and lime juice in a cocktail shaker. Add ice, gin, cucumber liqueur, tomato shrub syrup, and bitters. Shake for about 10 seconds and strain into a rimmed glass filled with ice.
Video of “how-to” make the Bloody Mary (plus a “behind the scene at our farm)
**Note: The beginning of this video is a behind the scenes look at HeathGlen’s Farm. If you want to go straight to the “how-to” on the Bloody Mary, skip to 1:00.
FAQ
A concentrated syrup made from equal parts fruit juice, sugar, and vinegar, brought to a boil and strained. The vinegar adds complexity and acts as a preservative.
You can, but the shrub syrup adds a depth and tang that plain tomato juice doesn’t have. The difference is noticeable.
Several months refrigerated. The vinegar acts as a preservative.
As a base for salad dressings (mix with olive oil), in marinades, or stirred into sauces for added complexity.
Yes. Smoked tomatoes add another layer of flavor, but fresh tomatoes work well too.
Check out this collection of popular tomato recipes for a range of tomato recipes, from fresh salsas to slow cooked stews, to tomato martinis.
Tomato Bloody Mary
Equipment
- tall glass
- cocktail spoon
Ingredients
- 3:1 ratio of sea salt to celery salt for rimming salt
- Sprig of dill
- 2-3 cherry tomatoes
- 1 jalapenos Sliced crosswise
- 3 Tbsp lime juice
- 1 ½ oz. gin
- 1 oz cucumber liqueur
- 3 oz tomato shrub syrup
- 2 dashes bitters
Instructions
- Grind sea salt and celery salt together in a coffee grinder and place on a flat plate3:1 ratio of sea salt to celery salt
- Rim a tall glass with a lime wedge and press it into the celery salt on the plate to form a salted rim
- In a cocktail shaker muddle together the dill, cherry tomatoes, jalapenos and lime juice2-3 cherry tomatoes, 1 jalapenos, 3 Tbsp lime juice, Sprig of dill
- Add to the shaker some ice, the gin, cucumber liqueur, smoked tomato syrup, and bitters1 1/2 oz. gin, 1 oz cucumber liqueur, 3 oz tomato shrub syrup, 2 dashes bitters
- Add ice to rimmed glass. Shake the ingredients in the shaker for about 10 seconds and strain into the rimmed bloody mary glass.
[…] See this post for more on how to use the Smoked Tomato Shrub Syrup in cocktails. […]
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a friend who has been doing a little research on this.
And he in fact ordered me dinner because I discovered it for
him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!!
But yeah, thanks for spending the time to discuss this
subject here on your blog.
A question! How do smoked tomatoes differ from sun-dried tomatoes, Dorothy?
Hi Cherry, The flavor is actually quite different between the two. Sun-dried tomatoes are preserved by drying the tomatoes (usually in a dehydrator) and they concentrate the fresh tomato sugars. Smoked tomatoes also dry the tomatoes, but only “after” they have been smoked over some sort of wood in a contained smoker. The flavor will have a smoky BBQ-type of flavor which is more complex and quite different than the taste of sun-dried tomatoes.