Ginger Syrup and a couple of tasty sipping options.

I need a drink. And I hate to drink alone, so you need a drink too. Oh I know—at this point in the holidays we’re all ready to detox, but hang with me. I’m going to give you a healthy, refreshing concoction that can be used in alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks. In fact, I first came upon this tasty elixir in Rebecca Katz’s awesome book the Cancer Fighting Kitchen. So I’m looking out for you here.

The concept is pretty simple. You just boil down a ton of ginger with sugar and water to make a simple syrup infused with the zesty goodness of ginger. Strain out the ginger and you can add the syrup with a squeeze of lemon to hot or cold herbal tea, to seltzer, or of course to your favorite cocktail fixin’s.

Being quite lazy, especially in the post holiday coma, I looked extensively for a recipe that featured unpeeled ginger. I was victorious with this one from David Lebovitz  that gets boiled a good long time for some serious ginger sass. The caveats are a darker syrup (which screams Dark and Stormy to me, so it’s all good), and the warning  that you can’t reuse the unpeeled ginger in things like gingersnaps, marmalade and ice cream. This triggered my age-old struggle between being lazy and being cheap.

In the end, I opted for lazy, and snacked on the sweet ginger afterwards anyway, proving that yes indeed you can be both lazy and cheap. Hooray! Ok, here’s the super simple recipe for super fresh ginger syrup.

Makes about 2 cups:

Ingredients

8 ounces  fresh ginger, unpeeled
4 cups water
2 cups sugar
pinch salt

Method

Slice the ginger thinly, then chop it into rough, smaller pieces.

Combine ginger water, sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Heat to a boil, then reduce the heat to a steady simmer. Cook for 45 minutes to one hour.

Cool, then strain the syrup through a fine-mesh strainer. Store the strained syrup in the refrigerator, covered, until ready to use. It should keep for at least two weeks refrigerated.

There are googles and googles of ginger cocktails out there, like these ones from Tablespoon  For a festive sparkler add a tablespoon of syrup and some candied ginger to a champagne glass and fill with your bubbly of choice. My quick fix is to fill a glass with ice, pour a tablespoon or so of syrup over the ice then add vodka according to your immediate need. Fill the glass almost to the top with seltzer then add a splash of cranberry juice for cha-cha and color.

For ginger soda start with 1/3 glass of syrup and a generous squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice. Fill the glass with ice then top with sparkling water or tonic and garnish with a round of citrus or fresh mint.

The sky is the limit here so spice things up, be creative and feel virtuous about bringing a whole lot of healthy ginger into your life.