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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented beverage made from sugar, 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 Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the rind thinly from the lemons and strain the juice.

  2. Add the sugar, ginger, and cream of tartar to a large container.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the mixture.

Ferment

  1. When lukewarm, add the yeast and stir well.

  2. Let it stand overnight.

Bottle and store

  1. Transfer the mixture to bottles.

  2. Scald the corks before using.

  3. Tie the corks securely.

  4. Store the bottles in a cool place.

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. Cream + gingertop 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 into carbon dioxide, which makes the drink fizzy.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the food the yeast ferments.
Ginger
Provides the spicy aroma and flavour.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright aroma from the juice and rind.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that gives the drink a tart edge.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the mixture must be lukewarm before the yeast goes in. Adding it too hot stops fermentation, and the drink will not become fizzy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, ginger. 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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