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Ginger Pop

A ginger-flavored beverage made with sugar, ginger, lemon, cloves, yeast, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Ginger Pop

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Pop

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil a few quarts of water and steep the ginger for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the ginger water into a tub.

  3. Dissolve the sugar in 2 gallons of water and add to the tub.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add the yeast and essences, then let stand for 2 hours.

  2. Add the remaining water and bottle for use.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Coffee + clovetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

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

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

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 carbonation and alcohol that give the drink its fizz.
Coffee sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides sweetness.
Ginger root
Supplies the spicy ginger flavour.
Essence of lemon
Adds a bright citrus aroma.
Essence of cloves
Adds a warm, spicy aroma.

The step that matters

Add the yeast and essences, then let stand for 2 hours. The yeast needs to be evenly mixed into the liquid so it can start converting sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol. The standing time lets fermentation begin before the water is added and the drink is bottled.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, sugar, ginger, clove. 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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