A Little Ode to Ginger

A few years ago, my mom and youngest sibling were working their way through the Little House series. For Mom, this was probably the 50th time she’d read the books, but there’s always some new detail that catches the eye or imagination in these wonderful stories. Since they were doing the books as a read-aloud, I heard snippets of the familiar tales, and was reminded of how horrific the season evoked in The Long Winter actually was. Terrible snowstorms and starvation aside, however, a small moment from this book’s beginning came to mind recently.

As many of us can attest, drinking too much cold water while working out in the hot sun can be disastrous, but those clever pioneers had just the right remedy. Laura and Pa are out in the fields, and Carrie brings them a jug of something cool:

Ma had sent them ginger-water. She had sweetened the cool well-water with sugar, flavored it with vinegar, and put in plenty of ginger to warm their stomachs so they could drink till they were not thirsty. Ginger-water would not make them sick, as plain cold water would when they were so hot.

What reminded me of this scene was a desire to re-create the ginger ale I drank at a local restaurant, which had converted me from my current dislike of mint. This particular restaurant is known for its house-made ginger ale, so I took special note of the ingredients during this outing, in hopes I could make it at home.

Task No. 1 was to make the ginger syrup, the drink’s base. What I enjoyed most about the restaurant’s drink was how spicy the ginger flavor was, but without overpowering your tastebuds as a ginger beer might. How many pounds of ginger root I bought, I’m not quite sure, but it took a rather long time to peel. The America’s Test Kitchen tip of using a spoon to peel the ginger was helpful, but this root is gnarly and lumpy in the most aggravating ways. It’s also highly fibrous, so using a very sharp chef’s knife to slice it is recommended. Forty minutes later, I’d filled a pot with sliced ginger, water, and sugar, and now it just needed to boil and steep for another two hours.

While that was bubbling away, I turned my attention to the limes. The different recipes I’d consulted varied between lime juice and lemon juice, but the restaurant version had been served with limes, so limes it was. Juicing limes is a sticky job, and a much harder one than squeezing lemons because of their smaller size and tougher structure. For simplicity’s sake, I squeezed the whole bag in one go and strained the juice into a container. Step No. 2: check.

Now for the garnish. Mint and I have one of those on-again-off-again relationships, but since the restaurant used it, I sighed and gave in. Thank goodness I did. Because I’m easily charmed by live plants (as evidenced by my overcrowded patio garden), I bought a whole mint plant rather than a pre-picked packet. It’s since been repotted and is thriving nicely alongside my sage, rosemary, and thyme. Two lightly bruised leaves are all that are needed to make this drink pop.

Finally, there was the carbonation question. I don’t own a SodaStream, and the cheap seltzer water at the grocery store just wasn’t fizzy enough. Or perhaps I was just being picky and wanted to feel fancy. Regardless, I opted for Topo Chico carbonated mineral water, and it complemented the other ingredients nicely.

These four elements, plus a few ice cubes, stirred up into a delightful summer drink, and it was fun experimenting with different amounts of ginger syrup and lime juice (more ginger, less lime yielded the best result).

For those who are worried: I saved all the chopped ginger root after straining out the syrup. It was too expensive to waste, and besides, it was now a simple matter to make candied ginger. A bag of this in your pantry is like gold, and I’ve already used it in a batch of Cook’s Country Gingery-Maple Thins. What I’m most excited about, though? Next week, I’ll bake it into a Gingery Lemon Curd Coffee Cake for my family to enjoy over the Fourth of July.

If my supply of candied ginger holds out until then, that is.