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Ginger Beer

A fermented ginger beverage made with water, sugar, ginger, lemon, eggs, brandy, and 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 ginger liquor

  1. Boil the water and sugar together for one hour.

  2. Add the bruised ginger and boil a little longer.

  3. Skim off the scum as it rises.

  4. Strain the mixture into a tub and let it cool.

Ferment and bottle

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

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

  3. Bottle the ginger beer, using stone bottles for best results.

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 the sweetness and the food the yeast ferments.
Ginger
Adds the spicy aroma and flavour that defines the drink.
Egg whites
Clarify the liquid as they set, collecting scum and impurities for skimming.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavour, with peel adding aromatic oils.
Ale-yeast
Ferments the sugar into carbon dioxide, making the drink lightly sparkling.

The step that matters

Stop the cask tightly. Yeast keeps producing carbon dioxide during the two weeks. A loose seal lets the gas escape, leaving the beer flat, while a sealed container lets pressure build for natural 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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