[This post originally appeared in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull for several years.]
Worth knowing fact #79 – Ginger Beer:
The following recipe for making a very superior ginger-beer is taken from the celebrated treatise of Dr. Pereira, on diet. The honey gives it a peculiar softness and from not being fermented with yeast, it is less violent in its action when opened, but requires to be kept a longer time than usual before use. White sugar, five pounds; lemon-juice, one quarter of a pint; honey, one quarter of a pound; ginger, buised, five ounces; water, four gallons and a half. Boil the ginger in three quarts of the water for half an hour, then add the sugar, lemon-juice and honey, with the remainder of the water, and strain through a cloth; when cold, add a quarter of the white of an egg, and a small tea-spoonful of essence of lemon; let the whole stand four days, and bottle; this will keep many months. This quantity will make 100 bottles.
From the excellent “Inquire Within for Anything You Want To Know or Over Three Thousand Seven Hundred Facts Worth Knowing” of 1858.