Skip to main content
Drink

Grandmother's Harvest Drink

A ginger and vinegar lemonade made with water, lemons, sugar, and optional soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Grandmother's Harvest Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine one quart of water, one tablespoon sifted ginger, three heaping tablespoons sugar, and one half pint vinegar.

  2. Take six lemons, roll them well, slice thin in an earthen vessel, and add two teacups white sugar; let stand fifteen minutes.

Serve

  1. Add one gallon water and lumps of ice, pour out into pitcher and serve.

  2. Some add soda and stir rapidly for "sparkling lemonade."

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

63Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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. See the original page.

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

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

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

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

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

Lemons
Provide the main citrus flavor and the acidity that defines the lemonade.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the lemons and vinegar.
Vinegar (in the method)
Adds sharp acidity that gives the lemonade its tang.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the drink.

The step that matters

Letting the sliced lemons stand with sugar. Sugar drawn into the lemon slices pulls juice and oils out of the fruit through osmosis, so the flavor is extracted before the water is added. Letting it stand fifteen minutes gives this time to work, and skipping it leaves a weaker, less aromatic drink.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, 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.

You might also like

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesGinger PopGinger Pop22 recipesGinger WineGinger Wine12 recipes