VINEGAR IN COCKTAILS — TRADITIONALLY CATEGORIZED AS “SHRUBS”
Technically, to qualify within the actual Shrub category, fruit juice and sugar would have been required, or, as Spruce Eats puts it, “In drink terms, a shrub is a concentrated syrup that combines fruit, sugar, and vinegar. The result is a sweet, acidic mixer that can be enjoyed on its own or used in a variety of mixed drinks. Quite often, herbs and spices are also used to create interesting flavor combinations.”
Today there are only two popular ways of drinking vinegar at cocktail bars. Those two ways are as “Pickle Backs” and “Dirty Martinis”. They’re not classified as being in any standard drink category, vinegar or otherwise, and the vinegar in the product isn’t usually recognized as vinegar by either the customer or the bartender, and is just considered “juice.”
Industrial olives are preserved in brine (salt water) mixed with vinegar (acetic acid). Commercial pickle “juice” is similar (defined below) Pickling is the process of preserving or extending the shelf life of food by either anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar.
The pickling procedure typically affects the food’s texture, taste and flavor. The resulting food is called a pickle, or, to prevent ambiguity, prefaced with pickled. Both olive brine and pickle juice contain salt and, more importantly, vinegar (acetic acid).
Acids in drinks give them “backbone;” without the acid, they can be “flabby.” Diffords Guide also has a nice explanation of things “Shrub Cocktail related“
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