Ginger in ginger ale?

"Julia Altshuler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Is there ginger in gingerale? Was there ever?

ginger smelled like gingerale all those years ago.

Quoted message said:

Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a seltzer
or something?

--Lia

If you do this an serve it to guests, please be sure to warn them about the
ginger ingredient. That would not be something that most people expect --
and I am very allergic to ginger. I don't know how unusual this allergy is,
but I suffer very painful consequences if I ingest just a tiny bit.

MaryL

MaryL said:

If you do this an serve it to guests, please be sure to warn them about the
ginger ingredient. That would not be something that most people expect --
and I am very allergic to ginger. I don't know how unusual this allergy is,
but I suffer very painful consequences if I ingest just a tiny bit.

Thanks for the advice on how to serve my guests. I'd be certain to tell
them that I was serving homemeade gingerale and leave the conclusions
about its ingredients up to them. Have you ever suffered the painful
consequences from commercial gingerales? That might answer my question
about whether or not there's any ginger in them.

--Lia

Julia Altshuler said:

MaryL said:

If you do this an serve it to guests, please be sure to warn them
about the ginger ingredient. That would not be something that most
people expect -- and I am very allergic to ginger. I don't know
how
unusual this allergy is, but I suffer very painful consequences if
I
ingest just a tiny bit.

Thanks for the advice on how to serve my guests. I'd be certain to
tell them that I was serving homemeade gingerale and leave the
conclusions about its ingredients up to them. Have you ever
suffered
the painful consequences from commercial gingerales? That might
answer my question about whether or not there's any ginger in them.

--Lia

So it would seem. Check this out.

http://hcs.harvard.edu/~dins/history/gingerale.shtml

--
"Life is hard. Life is harder when
you're stupid". - John Wayne

"Politics is war without bloodshed while
war is politics with bloodshed" - Mao Zedong

'99 FLHRCI

Julia Altshuler said:

Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a
seltzer or something?

--Lia

I made it quite a long time ago and don't recall exactly how but I saw
this recently from Ming Tsai and it's fairly close to the same thing
as I recall.

2 cups ginger slices, peeled (1/8 inch thick)
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 quart soda water
1 lime cut in wedges
4 mint sprigs

Mix ginger, sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a slow simmer.
Reduce mixture by 50 percent until a syrupy consistency is reached.
Keep in mind that the syrup will thicken as it cools. Strain warm
syrup. Allow to cool.

While syrup is cooling, make ginger candy. Take ginger slices that
have been drained out of the syrup and completely coat in sugar.
Spread on sheet pan and slowly dry out in a 225-degree oven for 3
hours. Ginger slices should be dried but still chewy.

In a tall glass of ice, add mint sprig and a ratio of 1 part ginger
syrup to 7 parts soda water. Squeeze lime wedge and add to drink. Use
more syrup if desired. Stir and enjoy. Can also make drink with
chilled soda water and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a tasty
Ginger Ale Float.
--
Steve

Ever wonder about those people who spend $2.00 apiece on those little
bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards...

Julia Altshuler said:

I remember being a little girl when friends of my parents brought them
an unusual gift of a fancy decorated pot with a pale substance in it.
My parents never cooked with much in the way of spices so I wasn't
familiar with it, but my father told me to smell it. I did, thought for
a moment and then announced "gingerale!" The gift was dried ginger
which I'd never seen before, but I recognized the smell of ginger.

So here it is 35 years later, and I'm buying gingerale for Jim's cough,
and I'm looking at the ingredients of the different brands: Schweppes,
Canada Dry and Polar. I can't see that any of them have ginger in them.
I taste the Canada Dry when I get home. It bears no resemblence to
fresh ginger. So I think that maybe the name has nothing to do with the
original product except that doesn't explain how I knew real dried
ginger smelled like gingerale all those years ago.

Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a
seltzer or something?

How about trying ginger beer, the non -alcoholic variety. It has a lot more
ginger taste to it than ginger ale.

"Julia Altshuler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Is there ginger in gingerale? Was there ever?

I'm not sure where this tradition got started, but in my family we've
always given gingerale to people with respiratory ailments, had it on hand
as a cocktail mixer, but drank it at no other time. I understand that
fresh or dried ginger is supposed to have some good effect for helping
people with a little asthma or a bad cold breathe better.

Quoted message said:

So here it is 35 years later, and I'm buying gingerale for Jim's cough,
and I'm looking at the ingredients of the different brands: Schweppes,
Canada Dry and Polar. I can't see that any of them have ginger in them. I
taste the Canada Dry when I get home.

Most soda today has "flavorings" rather than the real ingredient in raw
form. It happens to be one of my favorite sodas, but I don't care for
ginger as a spice in cooking all that much.

Quoted message said:

Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a seltzer
or something?

Give it a try. Sure won't harm anything.

On Sat 12 Feb 2005 09:15:50a, Edwin Pawlowski wrote in rec.food.cooking:

Quoted message said:

Most soda today has "flavorings" rather than the real ingredient in raw
form. It happens to be one of my favorite sodas, but I don't care for
ginger as a spice in cooking all that much.

I think Vernor's Ginger Ale still uses essence of pure ginger, as least they
used to in the not so distant past.

Wayne

Edwin Pawlowski said:

Most soda today has "flavorings" rather than the real ingredient in raw
form. It happens to be one of my favorite sodas, but I don't care for
ginger as a spice in cooking all that much.

Many of the soft drink companies claim to use real ginger in their gingerales
and claim that the competitors use artificial flavouring. I grew up down the
street from an executive of Canada Dry and he kept us well supplied with their
products. His wife considered ginger ale to be a cure all and when ever one of
us was ill she would bring some over. We moved to another city and I met a guy
whose family ran a small time soft drink company. They often bottled for some
of the bigger brand names. He claimed that their gingerale was better than
Canada Dry because they used real ginger and that Canada Dry used artificial
flavouring. Go figger.

I got to make the pop making process from start to finish. They had recipes that
used very concentrated flavours, mixed it with a sugar syrup. The flavoured
syrup is then bottled along with carbonated water.

Julia Altshuler said:

Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a
seltzer or something?

That would probably be horrible.
Make a ginger flavoured syrup and mix it with carbonated water.

Hold on. Google found this one:

Ginger Ale

The ale tastes best when the syrup concentrate is allowed to sit in the
refrigerator overnight before using.

Syrup concentrate for the ale:

3 1/2 cups water
4-inch long piece of ginger, peeled & chopped
2 Tbsp vanilla flavoring
3 tsp lemon flavoring (non-alcoholic)
1/2 tsp stevia powder (or to taste)

Serving the Ale:

1 cup sparkling water or club soda per serving.

Directions:

Boil down the ginger in water for 10 minutes. Strain out ginger pieces and
pour ginger juice into jar. Add vanilla and lemon flavorings and stevia.

Let cool and store in refrigerator as a syrup concentrate.

Add 1/8 - 1/4 cup of syrup to 6-8 oz of sparkling water and serve.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Wayne Boatwright said:

On Sat 12 Feb 2005 09:15:50a, Edwin Pawlowski wrote in rec.food.cooking:

Quoted message said:

Most soda today has "flavorings" rather than the real ingredient in raw
form. It happens to be one of my favorite sodas, but I don't care for
ginger as a spice in cooking all that much.

I think Vernor's Ginger Ale still uses essence of pure ginger, as least they
used to in the not so distant past.

Be still my heart. Do you know how long it's been since I've had
Vernor's ginger ale? *sigh*

Jamaican (or other Caribean) ginger beer can be pretty gingery, too.

Priscilla

--
"And what's this [censored] about Sodomites? It's always Sodomites this and
Sodomites that. What about us Gomorrahians? We were there too; we
deserve some mention. Sodom always gets the credit, and Gomorrah always
does the work." - JohnN in alt.religion.christian.episcopal

Julia,

http://www.bundaberg-brew.com.au/asp/page.asp?category=brews&page=ginger_
beer

Nuf' said!

It's available in the U.S. somewhere.

Andy

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles!"
- Ed Sullivan (1964)

Pizen said:

So it would seem. Check this out.

http://hcs.harvard.edu/~dins/history/gingerale.shtml

A great site. Thank you. My grandparents always had a couple of
six-paks of Vernor's around to bribe us kids. No wonder I'm such a
ginger ale fan. I do recall buying some here in the SFBA about 10-12
years ago, but haven't seen any in awhile. I buy [censored] n' Bull Ginger
Beer these days when I need a ginger ale fix.

nb

Julia Altshuler said:

Is there ginger in gingerale? Was there ever?

I'm not sure where this tradition got started, but in my family we've
always given gingerale to people with respiratory ailments, had it on
hand as a cocktail mixer, but drank it at no other time. I

understand

Quoted message said:

that fresh or dried ginger is supposed to have some good effect for
helping people with a little asthma or a bad cold breathe better.

I remember being a little girl when friends of my parents brought

them

Quoted message said:

an unusual gift of a fancy decorated pot with a pale substance in it.
My parents never cooked with much in the way of spices so I wasn't
familiar with it, but my father told me to smell it. I did, thought

for

snipped..
That ceramic "pot" is called a Ginger Jar and had a beautiful base
and a matching small cap-type top that was often tied with raffia.
They are Chinese I believe and quite valuable. My grandmother had a
number of them.

aloha,
Thunder
smithfarms.com
Farmers of 100% Kona Coffee
& other Great Stuff

"Julia Altshuler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Is there ginger in gingerale? Was there ever?

Anyone remember Vernor's?

Quoted message said:

Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a
seltzer or something?

I would run a load of ginger through a juicer, like a Champion. It will
produce a cloudy beverage, but tastey, though, like Vernor's, a bit peppery.
Ginger has very tough fiber, so go easy and watch that you don't overload
the motor.

Juiced ginger makes an excellent cooking ingredient, also. My favorite use
is for making pineapple-ginger icecream.

"Julia Altshuler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

MaryL said:

If you do this an serve it to guests, please be sure to warn them about
the ginger ingredient. That would not be something that most people
expect -- and I am very allergic to ginger. I don't know how unusual
this allergy is, but I suffer very painful consequences if I ingest just
a tiny bit.

Thanks for the advice on how to serve my guests. I'd be certain to tell
them that I was serving homemeade gingerale and leave the conclusions
about its ingredients up to them. Have you ever suffered the painful
consequences from commercial gingerales? That might answer my question
about whether or not there's any ginger in them.

--Lia

No, I haven't -- but, then, I haven't dared to try it for many, many years
(so would not be a good source of information on that). Incidentally, I
wasn't trying to be rude by telling you "how to serve your guests." It's
just that people often do not even think about common ingredients that can
be a source of severe allergic reactions for many people. For example, I
did not know for many years about peanut allergies. Now, I know that they
are literally *deadly* to some people, so I always check with guests if I am
thinking of making anything that uses peanuts. I often don't know what
allergies individual guests have, so I try to ask them in advance. I
apologize if I offended you.

MaryL

Julia Altshuler said:

MaryL said:

If you do this an serve it to guests, please be sure to warn them
about the ginger ingredient. That would not be something that most
people expect -- and I am very allergic to ginger. I don't know how
unusual this allergy is, but I suffer very painful consequences if I
ingest just a tiny bit.

Thanks for the advice on how to serve my guests. I'd be certain to tell
them that I was serving homemeade gingerale and leave the conclusions
about its ingredients up to them. Have you ever suffered the painful
consequences from commercial gingerales? That might answer my question
about whether or not there's any ginger in them.

--Lia

And when one of them dies or ends up in a hospital because they ingested
something you did not have the courtesy to consider letting them know
about, let us know about your attitude change.

jim

Dave Smith said:

Julia Altshuler said:

I remember being a little girl when friends of my parents brought them
an unusual gift of a fancy decorated pot with a pale substance in it.
My parents never cooked with much in the way of spices so I wasn't
familiar with it, but my father told me to smell it. I did, thought for
a moment and then announced "gingerale!" The gift was dried ginger
which I'd never seen before, but I recognized the smell of ginger.

So here it is 35 years later, and I'm buying gingerale for Jim's cough,
and I'm looking at the ingredients of the different brands: Schweppes,
Canada Dry and Polar. I can't see that any of them have ginger in them.
I taste the Canada Dry when I get home. It bears no resemblence to
fresh ginger. So I think that maybe the name has nothing to do with the
original product except that doesn't explain how I knew real dried
ginger smelled like gingerale all those years ago.

Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a
seltzer or something?

How about trying ginger beer, the non -alcoholic variety. It has a lot more
ginger taste to it than ginger ale.

There are a variety of "boutique" ginger ales out there today with
fairly strong ginger flavor.

jim

Damsel in dis Dress said:

Dog3 uhoh@ajfl;ajklsd;ajlds.nutz said:

Ohhh... Ginger Ale. Grandmother used to make me a Saspsrrilla (sp). I think
it contained Ginger Ale. Boy where they good.

Sarsaparilla tastes like a very strong root beer to me. Does that sound
right to anyone else?

Carol

Yep. Tastes that way to me too. It is made with a herb root:

http://www.greatestherbsonearth.com/nsp/sarsaparilla_root_sasparilla.htm

jim

"JimLane" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

And when one of them dies or ends up in a hospital because they ingested
something you did not have the courtesy to consider letting them know
about, let us know about your attitude change.

Do you give your guest a list of ingredients they may consume when they
visit? I sure don't. If you come to dinner at my house, you will be served
a variety of items, different seasonings,

I someone has a possible severe reaction, they should take responsibility
for themselves and ask if anything contains that ingredient.

OTOH, I'd never serve anything that I know would male people have a reaction
like liver. Yechhhh!