I'm hunting for a sweet and sour beets recipe suitable for canning.

It might just be as simple as that. I don't want typical pickling spice. I'm aiming for the flavor of childhood - which is not to say my mother cooked this from scratch, but rather that it likely came from a Jewish deli.

This might be a trick question - in my experience pickled beets are sweet and sour by necessity for canning. I have my mother-in-laws recipe that has been used for years and years and here is one from simply recipes that is like the one handed down
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pickled_beets/