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Drink

Ginger Pop

A fermented ginger beverage made with water, ginger, sugar, eggs, lemon oil, yeast, and tartaric acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Ginger Pop

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 Pop

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ginger liquid

  1. Boil the ginger root in 1 gallon of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add the lemon oil while hot.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Let it sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, skim off the foam and bottle, discarding sediments.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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).

  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).

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

Ginger root
Provides the main spicy, aromatic flavour of the drink.
White sugar
Provides sweetness and food for the yeast to ferment.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing carbonation and a lightly alcoholic character.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Eggs
Whites are beaten in to help clarify the liquid as it settles.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam in the morning. Foam carries yeast and fine particles to the surface. Removing it cleanly and leaving sediment behind keeps the drink clear and stops bottles from becoming cloudy or over-fermented.

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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