Ginger Ale

I recently talked about making ginger beer at home, which led to some confusion. A beer (including ginger beer) is going to be made using yeast to ferment the sugars you give it to produce alcohol (very little) and carbonation. The ginger beer is flavored by minced or juiced ginger that is mixed in at the beginning of the fermentation process. A ginger ale on the other hand is not going to use fermentation to create the carbonation (thus is completely non-alcoholic), but is carbonated by adding soda water or injecting CO2 into the liquid. The ale is typically flavored with a ginger simple syrup, which is mixed with the carbonated water (however you choose to carbonate it).

For this recipe I decided to mix my ginger simply syrup with soda water since I don't have a nifty carbonator. You can vary the amount of ginger depending on your tastes and how sweet you want your ginger ale to be (i.e. if you want a spicy end product and you use a relatively little amount of ginger in the simple syrup your drink will be quite sweet).

1 3-8" stalk of fresh ginger cut into 1/4" thick rounds (more = spicier and more ginger flavor)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Soda water

Combine ginger, sugar, and water in a small sauce pan and heat over medium heat stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Let the simple syrup simmer for 5-10 minutes. You can then combine the ginger simply syrup with the soda water to taste.

Feel free to experiment with flavors and add in other herbs to your ginger simple syrup. Lavender? Rosemary?