Homemade Soft Drinks

I made the yummiest concoction this week! It was pretty much inspired by this ginger-beer recipe and this ginger lemonade recipe but I did it kind of my own way and went a little 'off book'.

First, I made a ginger 'tea'. I made a big pot of it, like I do in the winter when I'm making a ginger tea -- boiling about 2-3 inches of ginger root (peeled and chopped but not crazy chopped) in about 4 cups of water. Then I poured the tea into a glass container and put it in the fridge.

I didn't sweeten it because I wanted to be able to sweeten individually (I try to avoid sugar some days but other days not so much). So I separately made a sugar syrup (2 cups sugar, 4 cups water until sugar is dissolved) and put that into a glass container and into the fridge.

Then, I made a pitcher of lemonade the way the guys do at Jet Fuel. I posted about that recipe before over here. Except that instead of adding only water, I added about a cup of the ginger tea and then topped up with the water to fill the pitcher. Wham! Ginger-lemonade! Been drinking cups and cups of it!!

Ok.. but it gets better. So - Rob comes home and he takes the Ginger-lemonade and makes a 50:50 mix of the ginger-lemonade and soda water (or maybe 75:25). Wham again! Even better than the 'flat' ginger-lemonade.

Ok.. so then I made yet another drink. I took the ginger syrup and mixed it with varying levels of sweetness (sometimes no sugar at all) with the club soda. HOMEMADE GINGER ALE!! Good golly! It was so amazing.

I've often heard about the deliciousness of homemade soft drinks. I enjoy the 'italian sodas' you can get at Second Cup, but they were still a little too sweet. This way worked out so well. And also Rob and I can have separate control over sugar levels.

I think I'm going to try to make some other flavoured 'syrups' or 'teas' for us. Let the Googling begin.

Talk to you soon,

B.