November Drink of the Month - Dark and Stormy (and Homemade Ginger Beer)

The first drink I ever made for Ann Mason was a Dark and Stormy. It was our fourth date, and we had just come into my house after being nearly swept away in a mid-summer South Bend monsoon. Their was a hockey play-off game on TV and my crazy roommates were still out on the porch, air-drying after frolicking around in the rain like pagans. Good times. I'd love to say that I chose to make the Dark and Stormy the drink of the month in honor of just passing the one year mark until our wedding, but that would be untrue (although it does make way better copy than what is to follow). Instead, Zack and I had both come across recipes for Ginger Beer - and what better way to taste test homemade Ginger Beer than in a Dark and Stormy? Below are the two recipes we tried out and then the recipe for the Dark and Stormy. The process is simple and only takes a day or two to ferment, so I hope you make your own Ginger Beer!

The first recipe we tried came from Imbibe magazine. They've been on a bit of a ginger kick lately. Two of their last four DIY recipes have been ginger themed (this month they have a recipe for homemade Ginger Liqueur, which I will clearly try out soon), so it was only a matter of time before I tried the recipe. Here is their step-by-step process:

1) Peel and coarsely chop 4 ounces of fresh ginger.
2) Place ginger in blender with 4 cups of filtered water and pulse until roughly puréed.
3) Pour mixture into a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1 cup turbinado/demerara sugar and 1 tbsp molasses. Stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Then remove from heat and allow to cool to just above room temperature.
4) Pour mixture into a 2-liter bottle, straining out and particulates through a double layer of cheesecloth. Make sure to squeeze the cheesecloth to extract as much liquid as possible.
5) Add 3/4 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice (fine strained to remove any particulates) and top off the 2-liter bottle with up to 4 more cups of filtered water until liquid is about 3 inches from top of the bottle.
6) Add 1/4 teaspoon of champagne yeast to the top of the mixture. Squeeze the bottle until the liquid comes up the neck (so that there is room for the bottle to expand as the mixture ferments). Screw the cap on tightly and let the bottle sit at room temperature for 12 hours, or until it is firm.
7) Move the bottle to the refrigerator, keep for up to one week.

This recipe produces a very dark ginger beer and the molasses flavor stands out nicely. The drink looks like root beer and has a nice spice aftertaste. It fermented very quickly - make sure to use care when opening the bottle for the first time so you don't get covered in carbonated fizz! This recipe was my favorite of the two we made. We also added a little clove to the mixture in the sauce pot, but the flavor was not terribly noticeable.


The other recipe we tried came from the Bar Book (which I mentioned in September). We adjusted their recipe in order to take advantage of the same empty 2-liter bottle method employed in the Imbibe recipe. The Bar Book recipe makes a gallon and then batches it out into 16 oz bottles. We modified it to make a single 2-liter bottle's worth. Below is the step-by-step process: 

1) Make 5 ounces of ginger juice by pulsing 3/4 cup of peeled, coarsely chopped ginger in a blender with enough water to create a thick liquid. The consistency should be much closer to smoothie than stew, but be careful not to add too much water. Strain the mixture through a double layer of cheesecloth, making sure to squeeze the cheesecloth to extract as much liquid as possible.
2) In a large container, combine the 5 ounces of ginger juice with 4 1/2 cups of warm, filtered water, 8 ounces of freshly squeezed, finely strained lemon juice, and 14 ounces of 1:1 simple syrup. Stir the mixture for 2-3 minutes to ensure that all the ingredients are well mixed.
3) Pour mixture into an empty 2-liter bottle (up to 3 inches from top of the neck) and then add 1/4 teaspoon of champagne yeast. Squeeze the bottle until the liquid comes up to the neck, then close the cap tightly.
4) Shake the mixture well and then store in a warm dry place for up to 48 hours, until the bottle has expanded.
5) Move the bottle to the refrigerator, keep for up to one week.

This recipe was slightly more involved - it required pre-making simple syrup and the ginger juice making process was a bit messier than the ginger-water process for the Imbibe recipe. However, Zack liked this recipe better. The result looks very different - this ginger beer looks like cloudy lemonade and has a much sweeter taste (but still has the nice, spicy ginger finish).

One quick note: where do I find ginger? Might I suggest your local Hispanic grocery store? We found fresh ginger for less than $1.50 a pound, whereas it retailed for over $4.50 a pound at our usual supermarket. Champagne yeast can be found at any local home brew store - we used Montrachet yeast at the suggestion of our local guys.

You can use either of these ginger beers to make a Dark and Stormy. Technically a Dark and Stormy should be made with Gosling Ginger Beer and Gosling's Black Rum (they own the trademark for the name), but any dark rum works. However, do not use dark spiced rum, such as Kraken, as the combination of spiced ginger beer and spiced rum can be off-putting. The (extremely simple) recipe is below:

1) Fill a Collins glass with ice.
2) Add 2 ounces dark rum (I use Myers Dark) and 4 ounces ginger beer.
3) Squeeze in the juice of 1/4 lime and drop in as garnish.
4) Serve with a straw for stirring the drink.

 Enjoy your Dark and Stormy!