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Drink

Root Beer

Root beer is a fermented beverage made with ginger, sassafras bark, wintergreen, hops, spruce essence, molasses, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Root Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brew

  1. Mix the ginger, sassafras bark, wintergreen, hops, and essence of spruce.

  2. Pour the mixture onto 4 gallons of water and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and add 10 gallons of warm water.

  4. Stir in 3 quarts of molasses and 12 fluid ounces of yeast.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Allow the mixture to ferment.

  2. Once fermentation is active, transfer it to strong bottles or jugs and cork them well.

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 + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ginger + hopstop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Hops + molassestop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ginger
Adds a sharp, warm spiciness that gives the root beer its aroma and bite.
Sassafras bark
Contributes the characteristic root beer aroma and flavor.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the molasses.
Molasses
Provides sweetness and sugars that the yeast ferments.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbon dioxide for carbonation and a little alcohol.

The step that matters

Transfer to strong bottles once fermentation is active. Yeast keeps producing carbon dioxide inside a sealed container. Bottling before fermentation is active, or using weak containers or corks, can let pressure build until bottles burst or corks blow out.

“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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