The Sassiness of the Seasons

We love GINGER. We love it in lemonade in the summer, in cookies and muffins in the winter, and in tea after dinner.

The other day, I stumbled across a recipe for a lemon-ginger infused simple syrup, complete with (of course) suggestions for mixing it with alcohol.

I went and purchased a knob of fresh ginger (I usually substitute powdered in any recipe that calls for fresh...) and a pound of lemons and Matt and I chopped and zested and simmered away an afternoon.

Here's how:

Three inches fresh ginger, peeled and sliced fine
2 cups water
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup lemon juice
zest of one lemon

Pile the sugar and ginger in a saucepan with the water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, simmering for five minutes, stirring frequently. Allow the syrup to cool.

Squeeze a cup of lemon juice (about four lemons), first zesting one of them into a small bowl. (It is easier, we found, to zest a LEMON as opposed to two halves of the empty peel...)

Pour off the cooled ginger-slices syrup into the blender and puree. (This will take a couple of minutes, due to the strings in the ginger. And you will STILL get strings in the finished product, but oh WELL!)

Strain the pureed syrup into a glass jar, add the lemon juice with the zest and shake vigorously.

Immediately rim a martini glass with 1/4 powdered ginger, 3/4 sugar (we keep a mix of this in our spice rack, nom nom deee-lishus). Pour 2 oz syrup and 2 oz vodka into an chilled cocktail mixer, add ice and shake. Pour into rimmed glass. Place glass jar of lemon-ginger syrup in the fridge, where it will keep for a week. (Two weeks in the freezer.)

Sit down and enjoy your lemon-ginger martini. The dirty blender, sticky saucepan, lemony zester and messy countertop can wait.


Salut!