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Drink

Ginger Beer

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ginger liquor

  1. Boil 1 gallon of water in a clean pot.

  2. Add 12 ounces of sugar, 2 ounces of bruised ginger in a muslin cloth, and 2 ounces of cream of tartar. Stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into an earthen pan and cover with a cloth.

  4. Let it cool completely.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Stir in 1 cup of yeast and mix thoroughly.

  2. Let it sit for 6 to 8 hours.

  3. Carefully remove the scum with a teacup.

  4. Fill stone bottles with the mixture.

  5. Cork them securely.

  6. Keep in a cool place.

  7. Tightly fasten the corks with string.

  8. It will be ready to use in a few days.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides sweetness and body in the finished drink.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbon dioxide that makes the drink fizzy.
Bruised ginger
Adds the sharp, spicy aroma and flavour that defines ginger beer.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity, giving the drink a tangy edge and helping keep it stable.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by hot liquid, so adding it too early can stop fermentation before it starts and leave the drink flat.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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