No, I'm not drinking woody, low lying plants. I'm drinking cocktail mixers called vinegar shrubs. Here's the alternate definition for you:"any of various acidulated beverages made from the juice of fruit, sugar, and other ingredients, often including alcohol."

Now many of you know that I don't drink alcohol because I'm allergic to it. This really limits what I can drink at bars. I love it when I find a bartender that knows how to make good mocktails. Just as food has gone through a renaissance over the last twenty years, so is mixology now. The cocktail scene is changing, or rather, returning to the past. The trend behind the bar right now is a return to bitters and shrubs. These two bartending staples were used for centuries but have gotten lost over the last fifty years. They are now starting to enjoy a revival.

Bitters: "a liquid, often an alcoholic liquor, in which bitter herbs or roots have steeped, used as a flavoring, especially in mixed drinks, or as a tonic." You can see from the definitions that bitters and vinegar shrubs are closely related, but bitters tend to be alcohol based and vinegar shrubs are not.