Strawberry sparkling water, three ways
The unsweetened infusion, the syrup, and the ratio that makes the finished drink.
In season: Local from May to July depending how far north you are. Frozen strawberries make a better syrup than out-of-season fresh ones.
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Infused, unsweetened
Use
1 cup hulled and halved strawberries per 1 litre of water
Method
Press each half once with the back of a fork so the cut face opens, cover with cold still water, refrigerate. No sugar.
Time
4 hours for colour and a light strawberry note, 12 hours for as much as cold water will pull
Sparkling
Infuse in still water, then pour over ice and top with sparkling. Strawberries dropped straight into carbonated water knock most of the fizz out inside a minute.
Keeps
2 days refrigerated. Fish the berries out at 12 hours or the water goes cloudy and starts tasting like the inside of the fridge.
The syrup
Ratio
1 cup chopped strawberries : 1 cup sugar : 1 cup water
Method
Bring to a bare simmer, hold 8 minutes until the berries go pale and collapse, kill the heat and steep 20 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve and let it drip.
Keeps
2 weeks refrigerated in a clean bottle, 6 months frozen in an ice cube tray. Two cubes make a glass.
Note
Pushing the pulp through the sieve with a spoon is what turns the syrup cloudy and gives it a cooked-jam edge.
The finished soda
1 part syrup to 4 parts sparkling water, over ice
Strawberry on its own reads flat and slightly dusty. A quarter lemon squeezed in per glass fixes it.
The shrub version
1 cup chopped berries and 1 cup sugar, covered in the fridge for 2 days until the sugar pulls a syrup out of them, strain, stir in 3/4 cup cider vinegar, rest 1 week. Use 1 tablespoon per 8 oz sparkling water.
What doesn't work: Boiling strawberries hard for 20 minutes to concentrate them. Past about 10 minutes the fresh top notes cook off and what is left is jam, which tastes like pie filling in a glass of soda water.
Goes with: BasilLimeMint