Hot Ginger, the Soda Fountain’s Winter Drink
Reader ratingsA strong ginger syrup drawn into a mug and filled with hot water, no fizz at all: the soda fountain’s Hot Ginger, from Saxe’s 1894 guide for dispensers.
- Recipe makes
- About 1 1/4 cups ginger syrup, enough for 10 mugs
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Includes about 20 minutes for simmering the ginger. Each mug then takes a minute.
Hot ginger in a heavy white china mug at a marble soda counter, with two crackers.
The story behind the recipe
A mug of Hot Ginger held no soda water at all, only a strong ginger syrup filled up with hot water, though the fountains still sold it as hot soda. De Forest Saxe’s 1894 guide for dispensers counts ginger among the hot drinks most in demand once the weather turned, on a list that also runs to coffee, chocolate, beef tea and clam broth.
A summer syrup, doubled
Saxe’s Hot Ginger Syrup was his cold one with twice the ginger extract and an “extra heavy” sugar syrup, and the extract he named was his own: “Saxe’s Ginger Extract,” a tincture of ginger percolated in alcohol, made from a formula earlier in the same book (No. 46). The hot syrup’s recipe simply points back to it. His ordinary simple syrup held 6 pounds of sugar to the gallon, so even an ounce of that carried about 21 g of sugar, some five teaspoons; the hot syrup was heavier still. A. Emil Hiss, in his 1897 manual for soda dispensers, notes that some counters finished the mug with a little cream.
Read more about this recipe
Fresh ginger in place of the tincture
This version makes the syrup from fresh ginger simmered in water, which keeps the drink alcohol-free and needs nothing from a pharmacy. It is lighter on sugar than Saxe’s syrup, since Hiss wanted hot syrups less sweet than cold ones, and keeps Saxe’s one part syrup to seven of water. Expect a clear, pale amber drink with ginger’s heat and a moderate sweetness. Buy firm ginger with smooth, tight skin; there is no need to peel it.
Two other mugs from the same counter are Hot Egg Lemonade and Hot Malted Milk with Salt and Pepper. The whole winter menu, from the boiler to the clam broth, is in What Did Soda Fountains Sell in Winter?
... Use one ounce of this syrup to seven ounces hot water.
Use double the quantity of Saxe’s Ginger Extract in making this Syrup ...
Recipe makes: About 1 1/4 cups ginger syrup, enough for 10 mugs
Ingredients
For About 1 1/4 cups ginger syrup, enough for 10 mugs. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 1 1/4 cups ginger syrup, enough for 10 mugs.
Ginger syrup
- Thinly sliced fresh ginger1/2 cupAuthor measures: 60 g.
- Water1 cup
- Sugar1 cup
Per mug
- Ginger syrup2 tbsp
- Hot water7 fl oz
- Heavy cream (optional)1 tbsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1/2 cup (60 g) thinly sliced fresh ginger
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp ginger syrup
- 7 fl oz hot water
- 1 tbsp heavy cream (optional)
Equipment
Small saucepan with a lid
Fine strainer
Clean jar or bottle for the syrup
Kettle
Mug, about 8 fl oz
Instructions
For the syrup, put the fresh ginger and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover, turn the heat down and simmer gently for 20 minutes.
Strain the liquid into a measuring cup, pressing on the ginger, and discard the ginger. Pour the liquid back into the pan, add the sugar and stir over low heat until it has dissolved, without letting it boil. Pour into a clean jar.
For each mug, warm the mug with hot water from the kettle and pour it out. Put the ginger syrup in the mug and fill it with the hot water, just off the boil, stirring with a long spoon.
If you like, pour the heavy cream gently over the top. Serve at once, with a few thin crackers on the side.
Nutrition
80calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 1 1/4 cups ginger syrup, enough for 10 mugs
- Servings
- 10
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for granulated sugar, for one mug with 2 tablespoons of the syrup and no cream.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Scale the ginger syrup ingredients together. The mug ingredients are for one drink; multiply them by the number of mugs.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Saxe gives no ginger syrup recipe of his own for the hot drink beyond “double the quantity” of his ginger extract in an “extra heavy” syrup, which he never defines. This syrup is about equal weights of sugar and water, and 2 tbsp of it carries about 20 g of sugar, so the drink is a little less sweet than his. For a sweeter mug, use 3 tbsp of syrup.
Saxe’s “one ounce” and “seven ounces” are US fluid ounces: 2 tbsp of syrup and 7 fl oz of hot water fill an 8 fl oz mug.
Hiss served soda crackers with the savory drinks and sweet ones with chocolate or coffee, and doesn’t say which went with ginger. Plain saltines or water crackers are our choice.
Storage
Keep the ginger syrup in a clean, closed jar in the fridge and use it within two weeks.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
De Forest W. Saxe, Saxe’s New Guide, or Hints to Soda Water Dispensers (Chicago: Saxe Guide Publishing, 1894), Nos. 187–188, pp. 105–106
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-free
- Drink family
- Hot Drinks
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1890s
- Base
- Spices
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Season
- Winter