Ginger Ale

Ginger ale—a carbonated beverage sweetened and flavored with extract of ginger root (or imitations thereof)—serves as the transitional link between the home-brewed alcoholic small beers and small ales of old and modern-day mass-produced soft drinks. Small beers had been prevalent for centuries as affordable, if far less potent, alternatives to commercial alcoholic brews. Derived from almost any part of almost any plant available in England and colonial America, small beers and ales were generally presumed to be tonic in contrast to civic water supplies, which were believed to be potentially toxic. Ginger beer, which peaked in popularity in the early nineteenth century, was certainly considered to be healthy: ginger’s reputation as a counterirritant and digestive aid, among other things, was firmly entrenched in folk medicine.