During the summer I love a good mule drink. Really simple vodka, ginger beer, lime, and ice. I’ve always wanted to make my own ginger syrup and so today I gave it a try.

I’m a huge fan of Greg from How To Drink, and so I followed his recipe for Ginger Syrup, starting with a full pound of fresh ginger.

The next step is to peel the ginger and chop everything up into medallions. This allows more surface area to let the ginger spice goodness seep into your sauce. I also grated a small bit, per the recommendation from How To Drink.

I added around 2.5 cups of water to the mixture, and also sweetener. I decided to use stevia sweetener since I wanted low calorie, but also sweet. The container that I have called for 2 tbsp of stevia for 1 cup of sugar. I mixed in 4 tbsp (for 2 cups) and stirred it together before putting it on the stove.

I then boiled/simmered it for around 30 minutes. I wasn’t sure if that was long enough, but when I tasted the mixture it had a fair amount of bite. I think in retrospect I could have gone longer than I did (and probably didn’t need quite as much ginger).

I then drained it and put it in jars before chilling.

I tried a little bit of it tonight on it’s own and it’s really got some serious bite. I don’t have any seltzer water, so I’ll need to wait to get some of that before I can truly try a mule.

From what I can tell it went well, and I’m pleased with the end result. Will I do this all the time? I’m not sure. It’s a lot of work to peel and chop that much ginger. However, if the flavor in a mule is as good as it is in my sampling, it might just be worth it.

Recipe

1 lbs Ginger

2.5 cups water

2 cups sugar (or equiv. alternative sweetener)

Peel and chop ginger

Bring to boil and simmer for at least 30 minutes

Drain and chill

Ginger can be saved for eating on it’s own.