Homemade Jamaican Ginger Beer (Vegan)
I’m just going to tease you all with this photo of our
homemade Jamaican ginger beer doing its fermenting thing on our kitchen
counter. I picked up a big batch of fresh ginger root over the weekend and
started the ginger beer. By Sunday, we had a fresh bottle of potent,
non-alcoholic ginger beer in the fridge. The first glass was amazing as always.
I got this recipe from a matriarch I knew in New York City – a native
of Kingston, Jamaica, who cooked Caribbean food that saved souls. Known as 'Mama Grant', her rice and peas were the best.
No special tools are needed to make this drink – just fresh
ginger root, whole cloves, lime juice, brown sugar, cream of tartar, and clean
water. Here we go:
Blend in a powerful blender 5 cups of hot water (I used
distilled) with a half-pound of chopped, scrubbed ginger root with the skins
on. Pour it all into a big bowl, add 1 tablespoon cream tartar, and two whole
cloves. Refrigerate overnight.
The next day, use a colander and cheesecloth to strain the
ginger mixture. Compost or discard the ginger root and cloves. To the strained
liquid, add ¼ cup fresh lime juice, and about 1 to 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
(start with one cup, and add more to suit your taste). Stir to blend. Bottle up
and chill in the fridge.
Drink the ginger beer straight, or, if you like it fizzy
like I do, fill a glass about two-thirds of the way with cold ginger beer, then
top off with club soda. Ginger beer is best over ice. It’s ambrosia on a hot
summer day.
Update on gardening work: this past weekend, we planted our sweet corn, Thai hot red chili peppers, three Basjoo banana trees (our banana grove is really growing), one Khak Dam papaya tree, more greens, and Genovese basil. In two weeks, my bestie and I are meeting at Balleks in East Haddam to buy food plants like tomatoes, yellow squash, and cucumbers. This week, I plant the pole beans seeds.
Irie!
Barbie xo
