Cocktail Hour: Pineapple Tarragon Shrub (Zero Proof & Full Proof)
No, we're not drinking a hedge. It's an unexpectedly delicious sweet-tangy drink that gives hope for warmer days. Plus, a perfect Super Bowl snack, what to read now and a creepy bar vulture.
Happy Friday, y’all. We made it to Cocktail Hour!
This week Substack named Bar\Heart a “featured” newsletter, which brought quite a few new readers to the party. Welcome! I’m glad you’re here.
My name is Amy Haimerl, and I write Bar\Heart. If you want to know more about me and why it’s called Bar\Heart (it makes sense; I promise!), I explain all of that here.
Bar\Heart sort of has two sets of interests, much like me.
On Tuesdays, I write about belonging, identity and community through the lens of the American Midwest.
On Fridays, I deliver a cocktail, book recommendation and other detritus from the Internet and culture straight to your inbox. (Here’s last week’s.)
Plus, on Sundays, we have a community discussion thread to get to know each other and share ideas and joys.
Combined, these are your weekly love letters from the bars and hearts of the Midwest.
Ok. We’ve got a lot of joy to cover. Let’s get to it. Cheers! 🍸
What I’m Drinking: Pineapple Tarragon Shrub (Zero-Proof & Full Proof)
I found this recipe for a Pineapple Tarragon Shrub in last month’s Bon Appetit or Food & Wine (I can’t remember which) and took a picture of it for future reference. I came across it in my camera roll this week and thought, Huh, that looks interesting. What do pineapple and tarragon even taste like together?
I can tell you this: Delightful and unexpected. It will be a great summer refresher – or something to give you hope for warm days to come.
But before we get to making the drink, let’s talk about what a shrub is. As a home bartender, I’ve learned the world of cocktails is filled with language that you have to decipher to know what you’ll be drinking. So I’m here for you.
A shrub, sometimes called a drinking vinegar, is a mix of vinegar, fruits, aromatics and sugar. It is usually added to a spirit (such as gin or bourbon) and soda water to create a sweet, yet tangy, cocktail.
The shrub we’re making combines pineapple chunks, tarragon, sugar and a little salt. That all sits together overnight, melding into a tropical syrup that deeper and more caramel-y than straight pineapple juice. (Lovey – who does not like sweet things – even enjoyed it.)
To that base, you add vinegar – typically apple cider, but you can also mix it up with white wine vinegar or other specialty vinegars. I was hesitant about adding vinegar to a drink. Yuck! But I was wrong. It adds a bite that cuts through the sweetness and balances everything out. Think of it more like balsamic vinegar on a salad or over ice cream than the distilled vinegar you use to clean your kitchen.
The best part is that you can make the shrub and store it in the fridge and use it either as the base of a zero-proof cocktail or as a mixer in a full-proof drink. (I recommend storing just the syrup and then adding the vinegar when you make drinks.) I particularly like this shrub — or any shrub — as a way to have a special occasion cocktail even when you’re not drinking or as a way to serve a drink with a similar flavor profile to all guests, regardless of whether they are imbibing.
Pineapple Tarragon Shrub
1 lb. chopped fresh pineapple
3-5 sprigs tarragon
1 ¾ c. sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
1 c. vinegar (such as apple cider, white wine or unseasoned rice vinegar)
Directions: Place pineapple and tarragon into a large bowl and mash up slightly. Add sugar and salt; stir to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours. The mixture will macerate overnight, releasing all the juice and combining the flavors. Strain the juices through a fine-mesh sieve (I used a fine mesh pasta strainer) into a small bowl or large measuring glass. Press on the fruit to release as much liquid as possible. You should have about 2 cups. Discard the solids. Stir in the vinegar. Bottle and store in the refrigerator for a month.
Zero-Proof Shrub
Directions: Pour ¼ c. (2 oz.) shrub into an ice-filled glass (like a collins glass or a mason jar). Top with seltzer water for effervescence and dilution and stir to combine. Garnish with pineapple or a tarragon sprig. Or both. (Note: Mix to taste is the most important. So you can add more or less of an ingredient to get to your desired sweetness/dilution level.)
Full-Proof Shrub
Version 1: Make the zero-proof shrub but top with prosecco instead of seltzer water.
Version 2: Pour 2 oz. shrub into an ice filled glass and add 1.5 - 2 oz. gin. Stir. Top with seltzer water.
What I’m Reading: February Bar\Heart Book List
On Tuesday, I published a list of 14 new books coming out in February that I’m excited to read. Not saying I’ll get all of them read – I’m a fast reader, but not that fast! – but just that these are the books I’m putting on hold at the library. Get them on your list, too, before the lines get long! They’re going to be popular.
Nonfiction
Culture: The Story of Us from Cave Art to K-Pop by Martin Puchner
The Great Displacement by Jack Bittle
The Lives of Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmela Ciuraru
Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcom Harris
Wolfish: Wolf, Self and the Stories We Tell About Fear by Erica Berry
Fiction
A Country You Can Leave by Asale Angel-Ajani
An Autobiography of Skin by Lakiesha Carr
The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
The Laughter by Sonora Jha
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin
Stone Cold Fox by Rachel Koller Croft
Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story by Terri-Lynne DeFino
Your Driver is Waiting by Priya Guns
Must Have: Fan Fave Super Bowl Snack
If there is one good thing I got from my ex, it is his Super Bowl snack recipe. Just take a can of Hormel Chili No Beans (NO BEANS! This is critical!) and dump it in a pan with a block of cream cheese. I know, I know how this sounds. But you’ll thank me for this later. Cook until hot and melted together. Eat with corn chips.
I won’t judge if you never even make it out of the kitchen.
This Week’s Feels: Take That, Demon Box Edition
Piece of Advice: How to Make the Best Grilled Cheese
I feel so vindicated. For years I’ve preached the gospel of butter and mayonnaise for the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. And now there is science – science! - that agrees. Take that, all you doubters!
3 Things I’m Reading on the Interwebz
“The Myth of the Iowa Caucuses Got Busted” by Eric Lach
This past weekend, the Democratic Party announced a plan for Iowa to no longer be the first official stop in its Presidential-nomination process. Iowa’s place on the Democratic Party calendar will now be held by South Carolina, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada, and then Georgia, then Michigan.
A colleague and I stopped in at a nearby gas-station convenience store to buy some coffee before the drive back to Des Moines. Inside, we saw Joe Sestak, the retired three-star Navy admiral and former congressional representative, perusing the shelves. Sestak was one of the more long-shot figures who had entered the race, and my colleague and I both hesitated for a moment, wondering if we had a journalistic duty to ask him some questions. But what does one ask Joe Sestak in a gas station after the Wing Ding? That was Iowa
This one is soaked in nostalgia for me. This is the same bottleshop where I bought my whiskey when I lived in Red Hook. I imagine myself passing by Kat Kinsman in the doorway, not even knowing.
I hung on her every bit of wisdom about whiskey in all its forms, as well as life, love, and the importance of not missing a chance to open the good stuff. On a random weekend in the winter of 2008, for instance, she'd busted out a couple of bottles of 1970 Lafite to enjoy alongside a potato-chip-topped squash casserole my husband and I brought over to her loft because that's just how she lives.
“America the Bland” by Anna Kode
In 2022, an estimated 420,000 new rental apartments were built in the United States, the highest amount for new multifamily construction in a half-century, according to the latest data from RentCafe, an apartment search platform.
The new developments look startlingly alike, often in the form of boxy, mid-rise buildings with a ground-floor retail space, sans-serif fonts and vivid slabs of bright paneling. The bulky design is conspicuous, jutting out of downtown streets and overpowering its surroundings. Over time, it attracts a certain ecosystem — the craft breweries, the boutique coffee shops, the out-of-town young professionals.
It’s anytown architecture, and it’s hard to know where you are from one city to the next.
What I’m Bingeing: June Star
Last fall, Lovey and I wandered into PJs Lager House, our local here in Detroit, for an early burger and a beer. Late afternoons are usually quiet at this legendary rock bar with an unexpectedly great kitchen. When we walked in, Andrew Grimm’s gravelly voice filled the bar with, as he describes it, “Americana via Baltimore.”
By the end of the night Grimm, who could easily open for Jason Isbell, had a new fan. (And I don’t like live music. The sound is always off and the vocals are buried in the mix.) I walked out with a T-shirt and the Pull Awake CD from his band, June Star.
Since then Pull Awake been on constant rotation while I write. When you read Cocktail Hour, imagine this playing in the background. I particularly love “Atrophy,” “Apollo” and “The King is Dead.”
Grimm’s songwriting is exceptional – probably because his day job is as a high school English teacher in Baltimore. He’ll be touring heavily in April and May. Maybe he’s coming to a town near you?
Weekly Cute Critter: Creepy Bar Vulture
This is the creepy vulture that lives on Friend Shana and The Consort’s bar. (Note all of the tabs in all of those cocktail books! Research!) I love him dearly — especially the weird fez that Shana crafted for him. You’re meeting him this week to get you ready for Tuesday, when I bring you the story of Plaguesgiving, an annual party at their house that brought a block together. It’s a pandemic love story just in time for Valentine’s Day. Because your valentine doesn’t have to be romantic.
That’s it for this week, y’all. See you on Tuesday.
He's not creepy. He's just a glittery little dude in a fez, hoping you like your drink. Fine, he's weird.