How to make soda

It’s time to learn how to make soda. And with none other than one of our favorite herbs, ginger. This is a great soda pop recipe.

An extremely brief and interesting history of soda pop

Back in the late 1800’s, many pharmacists experimented with herbs as tonics. They boiled the herbs, added lots of sugar to mask the taste and to make a long story short, added fizzy water somewhere a long the line.

People had JUST figured out how to contain the sparkling waters that were so popular in natural springs spas at the time. Now, drug store owners could administer medicine for common ailments as a delectable drink to draw people into their stores.

Root beer, Dr. Pepper, ginger ale, and even Coca-Cola had it’s origins in the drug store.

Well, these drinks did catch on. However, as you now know, all those healing herbs were removed for artificial flavorings, colorings and even more sugar.

Well, the good news is that these wonderful tasting and fun to make tonics can have a come back in your own kitchen! If you want to learn how to make soda, it’s easy!

Here’s what you’ll need:

- 2 to 3 ounces of fresh ginger root (depending on how strong you like it)

- 3 tablespoons of lemon juice

- 3 tablespoons of orange juice

- 3⁄4 cup of sugar (nice to blend white with natural cane sugar if you have it)

- 4 1/2 quarts of water

- Some yeast from the supermarket. Bread yeast will work, but if you happen to have a homebrew store around, get a small packet of ale yeast. It’s cheap.

- Bottles: see below. This recipe will make 8, 16 ounce bottles.

Try it and let me know what you thank thanks family herbal remedies!