Guadeloupe - Shrubb

[ElainaA]

I have just returned from a week in Guadeloupe. The owner of our rented apartment greeted us with a drink of his home made shrubb - rum infused with orange peel, coffee beans, vanilla and some 'secret ingrediants' that he refused to divulge. It was amazing and delicious. He was very negative about any commercial versions, saying they were based on 'essences' rather than natural ingredients. His son did say that the mix of rum and flavorings has to sit in the sun for at least two months (which, given that I live in upstate NY, may make it difficult to impossible). Does anyone have experience in making this?  I plan on trying (once we have some hope for sun) and would love any advice.

Elaina

[FrogPrincesse]

No experience in making this, but it sounds similar to Clement creole shrubb, an orange liqueur based on rhum agricole.

http://www.rhumclementusa.com/creole_shrubb.htm

Edited March 4, 2015 by FrogPrincesse (log)

[bostonapothecary]

An Antillaise, based on a recipe that the Widow Audibert’s son brought back from Guadaloupe, requires strips of the skins of two fresh tangerines and one orange to be placed in a small bottle, together with a stick of vanilla, split and cut into small pieces, all then being covered with a quantity of rum taken from a litre bottle. Let this mixture infuse for a fortnight, then add the resulting extract to the remaining rum and a syrup made by boiling 1/2 kilo of sugar in a slightly lesser volume of water for ten minutes.”

 

The rest of his article contains other folk liqueurs and is worth a read. I was so impressed with it all I retyped it up and hosted it on my blog a few years ago.

 

The sun fades the aromas in a cool way. Often these infuse for 40 days so if you start now, the sun will be out by the time you need it. Probably the most famous sun aged product is the Cerise au Soleil from Provence which are alcohol preserved cherries aged for the duration of the summer on a clay roof top.

 

Years ago I was making a Ratafia of pomegranate seeds in cognac and and a bottle of it sat on my kitchen window sill in a crystal decanter. I simply liked the way the light came through it and I didn't even have much intention of drinking it. Eventually I tasted it and found it much improved. There aren't any good explanations for what happens because it isn't really viable to producers on a commercial scale.

[FrogPrincesse]

There are a lot of recipes on French websites. The shrubb is typical of the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, and is obtained after maceration of citrus peel (orange, lemon, mandarins) in white rhum agricole. Apparently it's a traditional recipe for Christmas.

 

A few recipes: this one uses dried orange peel and orange extract, this one also includes cinnamon and a vanilla bean, this one includes clove as an option (and a video), this one nutmeg; this one is quite detailed with a lot of photos and two techniques to dry the citrus peels.

 

My bottle of Clement creole srubb is almost gone, so I know what I will be making next!

[ElainaA]

There are a lot of recipes on French websites. The shrubb is typical of the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, and is obtained after maceration of citrus peel (orange, lemon, mandarins) in white rhum agricole. Apparently it's a traditional recipe for Christmas.

 

A few recipes: this one uses dried orange peel and orange extract, this one also includes cinnamon and a vanilla bean, this one includes clove as an option (and a video), this one nutmeg; this one is quite detailed with a lot of photos and two techniques to dry the citrus peels.

 

My bottle of Clement creole srubb is almost gone, so I know what I will be making next!

FrogPrincesse - Thanks! The various versions of shrubb that I encountered in Guadeloupe all included coffee beans as well as orange peel, cane sugar, vanilla and sometimes cinnamon. I saw the Clement version in shops. Do you like it? Our landlord was very scornful of it - but he looked down on all commercial versions. 

One restaurant we went to had a huge jar of shrubb working (marinating?) on the bar. A waiter confided in us that it wasn't very good because it didn't sit in the sun for at least 2 months - essential (he said) for true flavor to develop.