Nourishing Products Made In Maine
We craft our shrubs with health in mind. Any vinegar and sugar can be used, but Kristin’s nutritional background influenced the choice to use apple cider vinegar and honey. We use organic, raw apple cider vinegar, and the honey is sourced from local Maine beekeepers. Our fruits, herbs, and vegetables are sourced as locally as possible, growing and wild gathering what we can from Kristin’s backyard gardens in New Portland.
First, we let the selected fruits, herbs, or vegetables, the infusing material, soak in the vinegar. This process allows the vinegar to extract the flavours and beneficial properties from the infusing material, making them bioavailable to the body. Vinegar is especially good at extracting minerals.
The infusions soak for 10 days to 8 weeks. The soaking time for the different flavour blends comes from our trials (and errors) to bring the maximum flavour to the vinegar.
Once the infusing material is filtered out of the vinegar, we have an amazing infused apple cider vinegar. We then carefully heat the infused vinegar to melt the honey in. We are diligent in keeping the temperature below 100 F which maintains the health benefits of the mother from the apple cider vinegar and the enzymes from the honey.
The recipes and flavour blends have been well researched and developed during my years as the lounge manager at The Inn on Winter’s Hill, now Santosha at Hillholm Estate, a beautiful retreat center in the Western Mountains of Maine.
The historic Inn, originally named Hillholm Estate, was built in the late 1800’s by the Winter family in Kingfield. It was designed by the Stanley brothers and is infused with history. In its time, using vinegar as a preservation method would have still been common practice. One of our flagship Shrubs, the Apple Rhubarb Mint Shrub, was created with apples from the Hillholm’s orchard, along with rhubarb and mint harvested from restored garden patches.
