Make-Your-Own Soda

Last night, listening to news reports about how bad diet soda is for you, DH and I were discussing alternatives. He drinks one 2-liter bottle of diet soda per week, occasionally another small bottle if he gets one when we go out. Regular soda, besides having artificial colors and flavors, generally has high fructose corn syrup as well. He did find one brand that uses "all natural" ingredients, and there are a few others that aren't as bad - Jones soda, Squamscot soda (which has the added benefit of being locally produced).

This led me to try making some soda, something I've been intending to do off and on for quite some time. Last week I bought a piece of ginger root at the grocery store to try homemade ginger ale, in fact. (After having a piece of ginger root dry up and shrivel on the counter, I had decided it was best kept in the freezer.)

Following instructions found online, and repurposing empty 2-liter soda bottles, I made one bottle of ginger ale and one bottle of root beer (using a root beer concentrate previously purchased). The instructions for ginger ale are at http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/cheese/ginger_ale_ag0.htm and the instructions for root beer are at http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/ROOTBEER_Jn0.htm. I now have both bottles under a cabinet, hopefully carbonating away. We'll know in 3 days. Well, they will know, anyway; I don't drink soda. I might be talked into trying the ginger ale but I hate root beer, so DH and DS will have to do the taste testing and let me know how they turned out.

In the meantime, I have been researching how to grow your own ginger root. Apparently, you can plant the part of the ginger root that has "eyes", and grow it as a houseplant to make more. I don't know if this root will grow because I had it in the freezer, but I may pick up a new one at the grocery store today and try it.