Unlike MIA, I Like Ginger(s)

Today I decided to try a recipe for homemade ginger ale I had bookmarked from Green Is Sexy. For refusing to experiment with more than one batch, I think it turned out pretty well.

Ingredients:
2 tsp. Sliced or powdered ginger
24 oz. Carbonated water
1 Lemon
Optional sugar
(all measurements estimates)

The first thing to do is make ginger tea using your sliced or powdered ginger. I opted for the powdered ginger because I've seen my brother slicing and chopping fresh ginger before and it seems like more effort than I am willing to exert. I did, however, take the time to snap a photo of the fresh ginger at Whole Foods because it looks so cool. It reminds me of food hobgoblins might eat or, as my mom said, it looks like mandrakes.

So, boil some water like you're making tea, but instead of adding bags or leaves, throw in the ginger. I don't know if this is exactly what's supposed to be done because the "recipe" I used didn't really say. I put in two teaspoons of ginger into 24 ounces of water and stirred it up as best I could.

NOTE: Ginger apparently congeals in water super fast and is pretty hard to get off of stuff once it dries.

I let the ginger "tea" steep for fifteen minutes. Less time would probably be alright. I've been steeping things longer because I'm at such a high altitude.

After steeping, you need to strain the ginger. This is one reason why I should have opted for slices of ginger, rather than powder. Unless you have a very fine strainer, it's going to be hard to get all of the powder out. This means all of it is going to settle at the bottom of the pitcher. If you don't mind giving it a shake each time before you drink it, the powdered stuff is fine, but if you're not down with that sort of thing, I'd recommend going for sliced ginger.

After letting it cool a bit more, it's time to add the fun stuff. I used Perrier because I really enjoy it and it gave me an excuse to drink whatever was leftover from my ginger ale. Again, I came up with my own measurements. I ended up doing half and half. So that's 24 ounces of carbonated water. Following that, I squeezed in half a lemon and topped it off with four teaspoons of sugar. This is really the phase where you should just add and taste until it turns out how you like it.

Overall, mine turned out quite strong and little too lemony, but I kinda like it like that. It also has that whole ginger powder sinking to the bottom problem. But for not really knowing what I was doing, I'd say it turned out quite well. Let me know if you guys try it and if you come up with any tricks for preparing it more properly!