Spiced Quince Sharbat
This bright fuchsia Persian sipper is redolent with cinnamon, vanilla, and cardamom.
- Makes
1 drink
- Time
2 hours 30 minutes, plus macerating
Back in her restaurant days, SAVEUR editor-in-chief and CEO Kat Craddock worked at Sofra, a Middle Eastern-inspired bakery and café in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Alongside date molasses-drizzled sweets and za’atar flatbreads, the breakfast hotspot serves a rotating menu of floral teas, Turkish coffee, and Persian sharbats: sweet cordials flavored with seasonal fruit, dried flowers, spices, and herbs. Her favorite was the electric pink quince flavor that showed up when the fragrant, fuzzy orbs arrived in the fall. Here’s how to recreate it at home.
Quince skin contains a high concentration of the fruit’s complex aromas, and the core is loaded with pectin that gives the drink its silky texture, so don’t peel or core it. In fact, this sharbat can be made using only scraps leftover from trimming quinces for another use—just be sure to scrub the fuzz from the skins first. The strained solids make a fantastic topping for ice cream or rice pudding. This recipe makes two cups of quince syrup.
Featured in “Why Quince, the World’s Most Stubborn Fruit, Deserves a Spot on Your Table” by Benjamin Kemper in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue. See more recipes and stories from Issue 205.
Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- ¼ tsp. kosher salt
- 3 green cardamom pods, cracked
- 1 lb. quinces (2 medium), halved and cut into 1-in. chunks
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 vanilla bean, preferably Mexican or Madagascar, seeds scraped and pod reserved
- ½ cup fresh lemon juice, plus wedges, for garnish
- Soda water, for serving
Instructions
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
- In a medium pot, toss together the sugar, salt, cardamom, quinces, cinnamon stick, and vanilla seeds and pod. Set aside, stirring occasionally, until the sugar looks like wet sand, about 1 hour.
- To the pot, add 2 cups of cold water and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Turn the heat to medium-low and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the fruit is very soft and the syrup is deep pink, about 2 hours.
- Place a fine-mesh strainer over a heatproof pitcher or bowl and strain the syrup (do not press on the solids). To the empty pot, add the lemon juice, swirling to dislodge any stuck vanilla seeds, then pour into the syrup. Add the vanilla pod back to the syrup. Set aside to cool to room temperature. Discard the other spices and reserve the cooked quince for another use.
- To a highball glass filled with ice, add 2 tablespoons of syrup. Top with soda water, stir, and garnish with a lemon wedge.
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