Husband and wife Charles and Jody Williams, co-founders of Broken Clock Vinegar Works, were out enjoying drinks one night at The Landsby Hotel in Solvang when they got bit by the “shrub bug,” Jody Williams recalled, after trying a shrub cocktail for the first time.
“It featured a peach shrub, and we were both hooked after one sip,” she told the Sun. “After that evening at The Landsby, we started making shrubs at home, and before we knew it, we had Mason jars lining our kitchen with various sugar trials and fruit components.”
Williams said that Charles was already an avid gardener at the time, frequently canning fruits, roots, and veggies from their own backyard and turning them into marinades and sauces, so “it wasn’t too far of a stretch to start making one more garden-inspired substance.”
Unlike many other shrub producers, Broken Clock Vinegar Works—which the couple began in their own home kitchen in 2016 as a cottage food business—operates under a winery license to produce fruit wines, which are acetified into vinegar. These vinegars are then used as the base for Broken Clock’s shrubs—or drinking vinegars, as they’re also called. This practice makes Broken Clock one of the only shrub producers handling their process completely in-house, from farm to product.
During its first year, Broken Clock transitioned from the Williams’ home to its own industrial space on Mission Drive in Solvang, where it’s been operating since 2017. Lovingly nicknamed The Shrubbery, the facility is currently open for private tastings and appointments.
“Here [at The Shrubbery] we get to share those life-changing moments with our customers, as most people have never heard of shrubs, much less tried anything like them,” said Williams, who hopes visiting first-timers will experience the same exuberance she felt after trying her first shrub cocktail.
Although she personally adores a good-quality “shrubtail,” Williams admitted it’s not something for everyone.
“The simplicity of the shrub cocktail, while offering such a unique and refreshing flavor, is really the magical thing about the whole shrub culture—that is, if you like vinegar,” Williams said. “If you don’t like vinegar, then stick to the plethora of cocktail mixers on the market that don’t fall in the shrub category.”
Near the end of last year, the Economic Alliance Foundation named Broken Clock Vinegar Works the recipient of its 2020 Innovation Award. The award is given annually to recognize a Northern Santa Barbara County business for strengthening the area’s economic vitality through new products or practices.
While the couple initially only started making shrubs for their own consumption at home, they quickly became attracted to the idea of sharing their concoctions with the public, especially given their mutual backgrounds in the beverage industry. The two first met at Carina Cellars in Los Olivos, where they worked together for a few years and began dating.
After getting married, the couple went on to own the Wandering Dog Wine Bar in Solvang for more than a decade. A short time after Broken Clock got up and running in the Williams’ home kitchen, its base of operations “graduated” to the Wandering Dog Wine Bar’s backroom kitchen area, Williams said.
One year after that, Broken Clock moved to its current location.
Overall, transitioning from the wine industry to Broken Clock eased a wide range of stressors for the couple, Williams explained.
“I love wine and always will, but you’ve got one shot per year to harvest the fruit and then wait anywhere from six to 18-plus months to bottle it and share it with the world,” she said. “And talk about stress from factors completely out of your control—weather being the main one.
“With shrubs, we don’t really have those problems,” Williams said. “We are in a position now where we have new batches of vinegar going all the time to use as the base for our shrubs, and then we work with the seasons for our various flavors.”
As for Broken Clock’s wide range of shrub flavors, Williams was on the verge of pleading the Fifth when questioned about her personal favorite.
“I love all our flavors—and I know that sounds like a well-rehearsed, vague answer, but it’s true,” she said. “I tend to drink a lot of whatever is our newest release because I’m busy testing it out in various cocktails and dishes. Like right now, we just released our winter citrus shrubs, and I am obsessed.
“I do love me a spicy margarita, so our peach jalapeño with a nice tequila and a splash of lime is a regular for me,” Williams continued. “My husband is a mule guy, so he drinks a lot of the blueberry vanilla with ginger beer and vodka or gin.”
Broken Clock also offers straight vinegars for cooking and other culinary purposes. And aside from cocktails, shrubs are great for sodas (sparkling water with a dash of shrub) and even baked goods as well, Williams said. She recently baked a cake using one of Broken Clock’s newest shrub flavors, tangerine rosemary.
“I’ve found that baking with the shrubs makes cakes, brownies, and such super moist and adds a really unique depth to the recipe,” she said.
Cocktails, sodas, cakes, and brownies? Take my money now!
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood could use some grub and a good shrub. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 11-18, 2021.