Ginger Beer: Explosively Good

Hello and welcome to the kitchen of Ms. Daisy.  Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to get drenched in a liter of your own homemade exploding ginger beer?  Have you ever had a desperate longing to dodge glass shrapnel in your own house?  Did you miss out on the era of Drano bombs and you have deep regrets?  Have you ever wanted to scrub every surface, every crack, corner, nook and cranny of your basement?  Well, have a seat, and you can vicariously live through my fun afternoon. Follow these simple steps and you, too, can have the fantastically sticky and memorable experience you've always dreamed of.

It all started about ten days ago when I got the itch to brew up some homemade ginger beer.  I have done this before (but not with such explosive results) and the taste of ginger beer on a hot, summer day is the stuff dreams are made of.  So I got out my trusty Nourishing Traditions cookbook and flipped to the back of the book where lies many fabulous beverage concoctions.  (Kombucha included.)  

Some people do it differently, but with NT, you make a ginger bug by adding 2 teaspoons of ginger (dried) and 2 teaspoons of sugar (organic) daily to 1.5 cups of filtered water for 7 days.  On the 7th day, you pour off the liquid of the bubbly bug and add water, sugar and lemon juice and then bottle that baby up for 14 days.

I bottled on June 9 (today is the 12th).  I filled up each one so carefully not to spill a single drop (as this whole process takes at least 3 weeks - and it is so good, you don't want to miss any - and you know you're going to want to drink every single bottle on day 1 and have to start right over again and wait another 3 weeks for another sip).  I placed them in a row in the dungeon basement.  Weren't they so cute?  Yes, they were.

Until today.

We went out to Costco for some organic spring mix and bananas (but epic fail, this Costco is ghetto and doesn't carry organic ones) and then over to the favorite health food store to stock up on vitamins.

Upon returning home, I instructed one of the littles to whip up a batch of dog food (this entails soaking her $50 dog food in pancreatic enzymes that are crushed with a mortar and pestle in tepid water for an hour).  This little is a dramatic little.  Upon approaching the area where the dog food is prepared, screaming ensued.  "Emergency!  Emergency!  Help, Mom, help!!!"  

Now if any of you have dramatic littles, you know that this could mean any number of things.  It could mean that there is a spider on the ground; it could mean that laundry is on the floor in the wrong spot (this little is very particular, I might add); it could mean that the computer is smoking and shooting out laser rays into onlooker's eyeballs, blinding them for life; or it could mean there is broken glass.  I skipped through the others and flat out asked, "What?  Is it broken glass?"

Which bottle would you like to drink out of?

If you have a house filled with females, perhaps this is not the first thing that you think of.  If you have a house filled with boys, you know that you will bag up one broken item of glass at an average of twice a month and it is somewhat of a standard issue.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner - broken glass it is.

With a twist.

"And, Mom!  There's ginger beer all over everything!  Everything is all wet!"

Oh goodie.

One of my ginger beers has exploded.  This means two things - I need to clean that up and second, what is the likelihood that several more are waiting to explode this very minute?  Let's go find out.

I want you to imagine that you love ginger beer.  And it is a good thing you do, because your basement will never NOT smell like it again.  

"Little, bring me the paper towels!" Little comes back with ONE paper towel.  Yeap, that's gonna do it.

After three towels and flamboyant use of paper towels, the place was cleaned up.  There is a sink there and I thought it would be a good idea to test out the other bottles inside of the sink and let off some pressure if they were also about to blast the basement to smithereens.

Let me ask you.  Have you ever wished you could be one of those baseball players who wins something or the NASCAR guys when they shake up a bottle of champagne and spray it all over your face?  If you always wondered what that was like, I can tell you.  It is sticky.

I EVER so slowly opened the cap to one of those bottles and Mt. Vesuvius erupted straight upward, all over the ceiling, all over the walls, all over the everything.  Do you know what happens when you try to use your hand to contain it?  That would be called your own Personal Ginger Beer Shower.  Great.  There are three inches of liquid left.  Good thing I was so freakin careful not to spill a drop three days ago, eh?

Where were those towels again?

The next bottles were opened out of doors.  I think the ants are happy.

Well, gotta go scrub off.  I'm sure ginger is good for your skin somehow.  After that, maybe I'll have a sip of ginger beer.  Or I could skip washing a cup and just start licking my arms.  Whatever.

Peace, love and bottoms up,
Ms. Daisy