The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides called it. Ginger – as well as being warming, digestive, gently laxative, and good for cataracts and general poisoning – is a very tasty thing.

More than 5,000 years ago, ginger root was first used by healers in the south-west of Asia to treat indigestion and joint pain. In Britain, it was recommended as a remedy for the plague but as it became more abundant, it crept into our food and drink. By the middle of the 18th century, ginger beer was born in Yorkshire. Its exact origins are unclear but it is known that English publicans often provided their customers with powdered ginger root to add to ale to mask the taste of an inferior beer. Metheglin – a spiced mead, flavoured with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger – had also become popular around this time and ginger beer may have grown from one of these.

The first ginger beer was brewed in a similar way to traditional ale but using fresh ginger root, water, fresh lemons, ginger beer plant (actually a living, symbiotic colony of yeast and bacteria rather than a plant) and either honey, molasses or cane sugar. The end result was a potent and fiery drink with alcohol levels of up to 11% ABV.

Ginger beer became very popular very quickly, particularly with British soldiers, who took the beer with them to Jamaica, Australia and parts of Africa, believing it could combat seasickness.

In the 1790s, ginger beer was exported to the USA and Canada in stoneware bottles, and it was England’s superior glazing process, the Improved Bristol Glaze, as well as the high alcohol content that made it possible for the carbonated ginger beer to spread around the world. Each country adapted the traditional recipe to its own tastes, some even removing the alcohol.

 

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Spicy Jamaican-style ginger beer

This recipe is a non-alcoholic version closely linked with the Jamaican style of ginger beer, one of the most popular and historically important variations.

• 450g fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped
• 1 finger chilli
• 250ml acacia honey
• 200g brown sugar
• 475ml water
• 60ml lime juice
• 6g fresh coriander
• Teaspoon of black peppercorns
• Chilled sparkling water (for addition to syrup once made)

Method

Add ginger to a large saucepan with chilli, honey, sugar, water, lime juice, coriander and peppercorns. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Leave to cool overnight. Strain through a cheesecloth or fine-mesh sieve and decant into a bottle. Add syrup to sparkling water in a ratio of one to three. The syrup can last several weeks if refrigerated.

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The Dark ’N Stormy

Invented at the ginger beer factory on the British naval base in Bermuda. A sailor, holding up the beverage, observed that the drink was the “colour of a cloud only a fool or a dead man would sail under” – hence the name.

• 50ml Gosling’s Black Seal® rum
• 150ml home-made ginger beer
• 2 wedges of lime
• Ice cubes

Method

Add the rum to the ginger beer in a highball glass with the ice, then squeeze one of the lime wedges and use the other for garnish. Give the drink a good stir and enjoy.

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