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Drink

Ginger Pgp

A ginger and lemon beverage made by dissolving sugar and ginger in boiling water, then adding lemon juice, cream of tartar, yeast, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pgp

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brew

  1. Dissolve the lump sugar and ginger in 2 gallons of boiling water.

  2. Add the juice and peel of 3 lemons and the cream of tartar.

  3. When cool, stir in 1 tablespoon of yeast.

  4. Let the mixture stand for 12 hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain through a coarse cloth and bottle it, tying the corks down.

  2. For a quicker use, add the beaten egg white just before corking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 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 food for the yeast to ferment.
Ginger
Adds its sharp, warm aroma and spicy flavour to the drink.
Lemons
Add acidity, brightness and aroma from the juice and peel.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that gives the drink a tart, clean taste.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing carbon dioxide that makes the drink fizzy.

The step that matters

Tying the corks down before bottling. The yeast keeps fermenting in the sealed bottle and produces carbon dioxide, which builds pressure. Corks that are not tied securely can pop out or the bottle can burst.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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