Ginger Turmeric Lemonade
Fresh ginger and turmeric simmered into a syrup, cut with lemon and sparkling water. Sharp, warming and properly gingery.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 90
- Calories
- 0g
- Protein
- 0g
- Fat
- 23g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 100 g fresh ginger
- 30 g fresh turmeric, or 2 tsp ground
- 120 g honey or caster sugar
- 300 ml water
- 6 lemons
- A pinch of black pepper
- A pinch of salt
- 1 litre sparkling water
- Ice
Instructions
- 1Scrub the ginger and turmeric but do not peel them — most of the flavour sits just under the skin. Slice both thinly.
- 2Put them in a small pan with the water and bring to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, covered, so the aromatics stay in the pan rather than escaping as steam.
- 3Take off the heat and stir in the honey until dissolved. Adding honey off the heat keeps its flavour intact — boiled honey tastes flatly sweet.
- 4Add the pinch of black pepper. Piperine in black pepper substantially increases the absorption of curcumin from turmeric, which is why the two are almost always paired.
- 5Leave the syrup to steep for another 20 minutes as it cools, then strain, pressing hard on the solids.
- 6Juice the lemons — you want about 200 ml.
- 7Combine the strained syrup, the lemon juice and the pinch of salt in a jug. Taste: it should be aggressively sharp and strong at this stage, since it gets diluted next.
- 8Fill glasses with ice, pour them a third full with the concentrate, and top up with sparkling water.
- 9Wear gloves or work quickly if using fresh turmeric — it stains hands, boards and worktops a vivid yellow that does not come out easily.
This is a concentrate rather than a drink — a strong ginger and turmeric syrup that keeps for two weeks and turns into lemonade a glass at a time.
Do not peel the ginger
A large share of ginger's aromatic compounds sit in the layer immediately beneath the skin. Peeling it with a knife takes that layer off along with the skin.
Scrub it under running water instead. If the skin is tough or dirty, scrape it with the edge of a spoon, which removes the skin and almost nothing else.
The same applies to fresh turmeric.
Simmer covered
Ginger's heat comes from gingerol, and its aroma from a set of volatile oils. Those oils leave with the steam, so an open pan sends a good part of the flavour into the kitchen instead of the syrup.
Ten minutes covered, then twenty minutes steeping off the heat as it cools, extracts considerably more than a hard open boil.
Honey after the heat
Honey contains aromatic compounds and enzymes that break down above about 40C. Boiled, it becomes generic sweetness.
Stirring it in once the pan is off the heat keeps the character it was bought for. If you are using sugar instead, it does not matter — add it whenever.
The black pepper is doing real work
Curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, is poorly absorbed on its own. Piperine from black pepper inhibits the enzymes that break it down in the gut, and the combination increases curcumin bioavailability substantially — the figure usually quoted from the original study is around twentyfold.
Whether a glass of lemonade delivers a meaningful dose is a separate question, and the honest answer is probably not. But the pairing costs nothing and the pepper is undetectable at this quantity.
Fresh versus ground turmeric
Fresh turmeric is brighter, more citrusy and less earthy. Ground is more convenient and considerably more staining-resistant in the kitchen, though it makes a cloudier syrup.
Either works. Two teaspoons of ground stands in for the 30 g of fresh.
The salt again
The same principle as watermelon juice and fruit stalls everywhere: a pinch of salt suppresses bitterness and makes sweet and sour flavours read more clearly. You will not taste salt.
Nutrition
Around 90 calories a glass, almost all from the honey. Six lemons across six servings gives a real amount of vitamin C.
Claims about ginger and turmeric as cure-alls run well ahead of the evidence. What is reasonably supported is ginger's effect on nausea. Treat this as a good drink rather than a medicine.
The concentrate keeps for two weeks in the fridge.
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