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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented ginger beverage made with sugar, ginger, water, lemon, cream of tartar, 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 Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brew

  1. In a large pan, combine the sugar, ginger, and cold water.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, skimming off any foam.

  3. Pour the mixture into a large earthenware jar and add the sliced lemon and cream of tartar.

  4. Let it cool to lukewarm, then stir in the yeast.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Allow it to ferment for 2 days.

  2. Strain the mixture and bottle it in small stone bottles, securing the corks 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 + 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. 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

Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing carbon dioxide that makes the drink fizzy.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides sweetness; it is converted into carbon dioxide and alcohol during fermentation.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity, which helps keep the brew tart and balanced.
Ginger
Contributes the spicy, aromatic flavour that defines the drink.

The step that matters

Cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must cool to lukewarm before it is stirred in. Adding yeast too hot can stop fermentation before it starts.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, 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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