A Dry Rabbit original · Halloween
Nightshade Shrub Spritz
A near-black spritz for Halloween night: blackberry and cracked-pepper shrub, a little lemon and plenty of bubbles, with a whiff of toasted bay.
Alcohol-free. Nothing in it has alcohol, unless you add the optional NA sparkling rosé, which may carry up to 0.5% ABV; Prima Pavé Rosé Brut says 0.0% on its own site.
Make it
You’ll need
- 1½ oz (45 ml) blackberry–black pepper shrub
- ¼ oz (7.5 ml) fresh lemon juice
- 4 oz (120 ml) soda water, chilled
- 4 oz (120 ml) NA sparkling rosé, such as Prima Pavé Rosé Brut, in place of the soda (optional)
Garnish: A bay leaf held over a flame for two seconds, well away from the glass, until it smells toasty, and one blackberry.
Method
- Fill a big wine glass with ice.
- Pour in the shrub and the lemon juice, add the soda water and give it one slow stir.
Make ahead. Start the shrub three days ahead: one day for the berries to give up their juice, two more to mellow once the vinegar's in.
Allergens and caffeine
- No major allergens, and no caffeine.
- If you use the NA rosé, it contains sulfites, as most wines do.
Every brand we name is optional. Prima Pavé Rosé Brut says “0.0% Alcohol” on its own site, and lists sulfites. (Read Oct 17, 2026.)
Get everything for it
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The bottles
- Prima Pavé Rosé Brut
The tools
- Cocktail Kingdom Leopold Jigger
- Hand citrus press
- Bar spoon
The pantry
- Black peppercorns
- Bay leaves
Make ahead
- Blackberry–black pepper shrub. Crush 1 cup of blackberries in a jar with ½ cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of cracked black pepper and 2 bay leaves. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours. Stir in ½ cup of apple cider vinegar, strain out the solids and give it 2 more days in the fridge. Makes about 1 cup and keeps about 3 weeks, cold (our estimate).
From the store
Fresh lemon juice, Soda water.
Buying in person? See where to shop zero-proof around Boston.
The Weekly Hop. Every Thursday, the alcohol-free picks worth leaving the house for. Free.
How we checked it
Dry Rabbit originals are developed and checked with AI, against the 42 tested recipes in The Dry Rabbit Cocktail Guide: sweetness and acidity per ounce, sweet to sour, dilution and the drink’s size against drinks made the same way, every ingredient’s alcohol, and whether you can buy it. One that falls outside the book’s range is reworked before it’s published.
The check’s notes on Nightshade Shrub Spritz
Reworked lightly. As approved (1½ oz shrub, ¼ oz lemon, 3 oz soda) it measured sweetness 0.25 and acidity 0.22 a finished ounce, both above the book's built drinks (to 0.20 and 0.17): a shrub is sugar and vinegar in equal measure, so 3 oz of soda leaves it sharp and syrupy. One more ounce of soda brings it to 0.21 and 0.18, inside the check's margin, with sweet to sour at 1.13 and 5.9 oz in the glass. The shrub's numbers are our estimate from its recipe (about a cup, from ½ cup each of sugar and cider vinegar and a cup of berries). Pepper and toasted bay make it smell like a cocktail rather than a soda, and the vinegar gives the bite a spirit would. Blackberries are in every supermarket, frozen ones work, and Prima Pavé Rosé Brut, the optional swap, says 0.0% on its own site. 0.0%.
Made it? Tell us how it was: the best originals come back next season.
More to make
From our book, free on the site: The Burrow, Rabbit Punch, Harvey, Crepuscular, Winter Coat, Bog Hopper.