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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented ginger beverage made with sugar, water, ginger, egg whites, lemon, brandy, and ale yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the syrup

  1. Boil lump sugar in water with bruised ginger for 1 hour.

  2. Add beaten egg whites and boil a little longer, skimming off the scum.

  3. Strain into a tub and let it cool.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add lemon peel, lemon juice, brandy, and ale-yeast to the cooled mixture.

  2. Stop the cask tightly and let it sit for 2 weeks.

  3. Bottle the ginger beer and let it sit for another 2 weeks before serving.

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. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and ginger 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

Lump sugar
Provides sweetness and the food for yeast to ferment into alcohol and carbonation.
Ginger
Adds the characteristic spicy, aromatic flavour to the drink.
Egg whites
Coagulate when boiled and collect the scum, helping clarify the liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the flavour.
Ale-yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing carbonation and alcohol in the drink.

The step that matters

Stop the cask tightly. The yeast ferments the sugar into carbon dioxide; a loose seal lets gas escape and can leave the drink flat, while a sealed container lets pressure build for carbonation.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, lemon, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, brandy. 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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