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Ginger Nectar

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a large pot, combine water, sugar, and beaten egg whites. Mix well.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Add ginger and boil for 20 minutes.

Finish and bottle

  1. Once cooled, stir in the lemon juice and rind.

  2. Add yeast, mix well, then bottle and cork tightly.

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and the body of the syrup that the drink is built on.
Whites of eggs
When boiled, the whites coagulate and carry impurities up, clarifying the liquid as foam is skimmed off.
Ginger
Adds the main aroma and spicy flavour as it steeps in the boiling liquid.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus aroma from the juice and rind.
Yeast
Ferments some of the sugar, producing gas and a lightly fizzy, alcoholic character.

The step that matters

Add the yeast after the mixture has cooled. Yeast is a living organism. Added to liquid that is still hot, it can be killed before it ferments the sugar, so the drink may never work. Cooling first keeps the yeast active for fermentation in the bottle.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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