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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented ginger drink made with sugar, ginger, lemon juice, yeast, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Bruise the ginger well and boil it in the boiling water for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon juice, then strain the mixture.

Ferment and bottle

  1. When cool, add the cream of tartar, yeast, and egg white. Stir well.

  2. Let it stand for 12 hours.

  3. Bottle and cork it 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 + 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. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides sweetness and the alcohol and carbonation produced during fermentation.
Rough ginger
Supplies the characteristic spicy aroma and flavour of the beer.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that gives a tangy taste and helps keep the liquid stable.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into carbon dioxide, making the drink lively and fizzy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Bottle and cork it well. Fermentation produces carbon dioxide that builds pressure inside the bottles. If the corks are not sealed firmly, the gas escapes and the drink goes flat, while sealed bottles can build enough pressure to burst if fermentation continues.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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