Cherry Shrub
One summer we picked a large quantity of Bing, Brooks, Rainier, and Tulare cherries. One way to preserve their flavors was in a shrub: macerating them in sugar with various other flavors, then straining and adding vinegar both for flavor and to help make the syrup shelf-stable. The best of this batch combined Rainier cherries with fennel, cider vinegar, and champagne vinegar. Other experiments included cherry-bay leaf-peppercorn, cherry-ginger, and cherry-vanilla.