Last Call: The Magic Of Cocktail Shrubs

It's almost-just-barely spring now, so I can start preaching the gospel of shrubs. No, not the round landscaping accents, but cocktail shrubs. They're the easiest cocktail ingredient to make at home and all your friends will be so impressed. All you need is some overripe fruit—I have some past-prime strawberries I'm currently shrubbing—plain sugar, and apple cider vinegar. Chop up the fruit and add an equal proportion of sugar, then leave that covered in your fridge for a few days until the sugar starts to leech all the juice out of the fruit into a glorious syrup. Strain off the solids and add apple cider vinegar until it's balanced out the sweetness. Voila! Shrubs are divine when mixed with gin and soda water but can work well with other spirits, too. [Kate Bernot]

While investigating a one-second salad, I came across my new favorite YouTube channel: The Slow-Mo Guys on The Super Slow Show, in which Gav and Dan do insane, showy stunts, filmed in slo-mo—like Mythbusters with less science and more fun. Fortunately for The Takeout, Gav and Dan are focusing on food this week, so in addition to the one-second salad, there's flopping down on the world's largest jelly (gelatin) and crashing into a fruit stand to see how far the fruit will go (winner: a strawberry). The slow-mo part comes as we watch the climactic parts of the videos over and over. Kinda dumb, but strangely addictive. [Gwen Ihnat]