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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented ginger beverage made with water, ginger, sugar, lemon juice, honey, yeast, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ginger liquid

  1. Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil and pour it over the ingredients in a pan.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool until lukewarm.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of fresh thick brewer's yeast and stir well.

  4. Cover the pan with a cloth and let it stand undisturbed in a warm place for at least 12 hours.

Bottle

  1. Skim off the yeast, then bottle the clear liquid and tie the corks down.

Alternative method

  1. For the alternative method, boil 5 ounces of bruised ginger in 3 quarts of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add 5 pounds of white sugar, ⅓ cup of lemon juice, ¼ pound of honey, and 15 quarts of water.

  3. When cold, strain through a cloth and add ¼ of an egg white and 1 teaspoon of essence of lemon.

  4. Let it stand covered for 4 days, then bottle and tie the corks down.

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. Ginger + honeytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + honeytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,707 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

Brewer's yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbonation and the drink's fizz.
White sugar
Provides the food for fermentation and the drink's sweetness.
Bruised ginger
Supplies the characteristic spicy, aromatic flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Honey
Adds sweetness and a rounded, floral flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand undisturbed while it ferments. Yeast needs a warm, still environment to ferment steadily. Disturbing the mixture or letting it get too cold slows fermentation, and sealing bottles too early can build pressure that bursts them.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, honey, 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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