Roman’s Jamaican Ginger Beer

I’ve gone for a Jamaican one as those guys know how to make the best ginger beer and you want this thing fiery. You know, like commercial ginger beer used to be before someone decided we couldn’t take strong flavours or deal with chewing…     

Jamaican Ginger Beer

Ingredients

• About 2 ‘hands’ worth of ginger (do this according to taste, which will require some experimentation)
• 1 vanilla pod     
• 1tbsp white rice
• 3 cloves (the spice)        
• Juice and zest of 1 lime                 
• 1 stick cinammon
• 2 litres water
• 200 – 400g sugar (depending upon taste) – I would go for demerara or some other less processed sugar for flavour and authenticity.          

Method

1. Thoroughly wash your ginger and chop into smallish chunks. I don’t advocate peeling the ginger save to chop off the odd extremely warty bits. The skin is covered in yeasts, which may add some sparkle to your drink. The skin also holds a lot of potent compounds.
2. Blend the ginger with half the water
3. Add the lime zest, rice and cinnamon stick to the ginger/water mixture and leave to rest somewhere cool and dark for 24 hours.
4. Strain mixture 
5. Add sugar to the remaining water and heat, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved.
6. Add the strained mixture to the water/sugar solution and stir.                
7. Add the lime juice vanilla pod and cloves
8. Store until desired.

You’ve made your own ginger beer now. I hope you went for a burny level strength. You can enjoy a cool glass of this (Rum is a great addition) in the knowledge that you are committing chemical warfare on nasties in your body.

Variations

You can add a yeast mixture in order to ferment the ginger beer and get more effervescence and some degree of alcohol content      

A little cream of tartar is recommended in some recipes            

A dash of angostura bitters into the mixture just before storage or other combinations of spices are also possible