My Homemade Ginger Ale

To make ginger ale at home, I used a ginger syrup and club soda. I checked several recipes online for the ginger syrup and settled on a hybrid of several versions. Here's what I made mine.

Ingredients:

1 hand ginger, peeled and sliced thin
4 strips of lemon peel (6 or 8 might be nice for more lemony flavor)
3 cups water

scant 1  1/2 cups of granulated sugar

Ginger is easiest to peel if you cut the segments apart. Then you can use a vegetable peeler to remove the skin before slicing or mincing.

I peeled the ginger, then sliced into 1/16-inch slices. I had about 1 cup of slices when done.

In a stainless saucepan, I placed the 4 strips of lemon peel, sliced and peeled ginger, and 3 cups of water. I brought it all to a boil, reduced the heat and simmered, covered, for 10 minutes.

Next, I stirred in the sugar and brought back to a boil. Once boiling, I reduced the heat and simmered gently, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

I allowed the infusion to cool with a lid on for 1 hour. After an hour, I strained the syrup through a mesh sieve and chilled it. 

After simmering, I had about 2 cups of strained syrup.

To make ginger ale, I used about 3  1/2 to 4 tablespoons of syrup for every 8 ounces of club soda. The sugary syrup causes the soda to really fizz up, so I discovered it was better to add the soda to a bottle or glass first, then add the syrup.

I wanted the ginger ale in bottles for self-serve on Saturday. However, I think this homemade version has more fizz when made fresh for each serving, pouring the club soda in a glass first, then spooning in measures of the ginger syrup.

My homemade ginger ale is very gingery and not nearly as sweet-tasting as commercial ginger ale. Because . . . frugal -- I've saved the cooked ginger pieces in the fridge in an airtight container and will chopped them fine to add to ginger cake later this week.

This was fun and delicious. I'll try it again very soon and maybe add more lemon peel and perhaps a bit of lemon juice.