Ginger Ale

When's the last time you tasted real ginger in your ginger ale? It's a little easier to do these days with a number of brands bottling the real deal. But the mass market ginger ale is nothing more than corn syrup and artificial flavorings. A little bird told me that a good fake can be made in restaurants by adding a splash of Coke to 7-UP or Sprite. Not in my kitchen!

The ginger ale I made last year involved boiling sliced ginger in a simple syrup for hours to reduce the syrup and concentrate the flavors. Sparkling water was then added to the syrup. It was time intensive and, in the end, too sweet. The bonus was the ginger candy that I made with the ginger slices. Dredged in sugar and baked in a warm oven to dry them out, they came out chewy, spicy and sweet.

Here's a five minute ticket to homemade ginger ale that I whipped up last night.

Quick Ginger Ale

4 inch piece of fresh ginger
2/3 c water
1/2 c sugar
1 liter chilled sparkling water with lime essence (like Poland Spring)

Peel the ginger with a spoon and grate the whole thing on the fine side of a box grater into a saucepan. Use the 2/3 c water to rinse the grater and add this to the pan as well. Add the sugar and heat over a medium flame with stirring just until the sugar dissolves. Pour the mixture over a glass measuring cup through a sieve and squeeze the juices out with a spoon. Discard the remaining pulp or eat it as a sweet and spicy, if high-fiber, snack.

Add 1/4 c of the syrup to a pint glass, top off with sparkling water, and enjoy. Makes about 4.

(In retrospect, I would have added some fresh lime juice to make it a little more sour.)

Why is ginger peeled with a spoon? If you were to go at a piece of ginger with a vegetable peeler, you would find yourself taking off a good bit of ginger pulp along with the skin. The problem is the fibrous structure, and once you dig in, you're committed to following the stringy flesh all the way to the end. A spoon also lets you get into all the nooks and crannies of the ginger.