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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented ginger drink made with ginger, lemon, sugar, water, yeast, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In an earthen pan, combine ginger, cream of tartar, lemon rind, lemon juice, and lump sugar.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mixture and stir well.

  3. Let it stand until blood-warm.

  4. Stir in the yeast.

  5. Cover with a cloth and let sit overnight.

Strain and bottle

  1. Remove the scum from the top.

  2. Strain through a fine sieve or bag.

  3. Pour the clear liquid into half-pint soda water bottles.

  4. Cork the bottles tightly and secure with string.

  5. Lay the bottles on their sides.

Ferment

  1. Allow to ferment for a few days until ready to drink.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ginger
Adds its sharp, spicy aroma and flavour to the drink.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that gives the drink a tart, tangy taste.
Lump sugar
Feeds the yeast, which turns the sugar into carbonation and alcohol.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing the fizz that carbonates the drink in the bottle.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavour to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Corking the bottles tightly. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide inside the sealed bottles. A loose cork lets the gas escape, leaving the drink flat, while a weak seal can let bottles burst under pressure.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, cream, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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