 Here's the skinny. This is what you get in store-bought ginger ale Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavor. Wait, what exactly is natural flavor? Natural flavor is extracted flavoring from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy or fermentation products whose function is flavoring not nutritional. Then you have sodium benzoate and caramel coloring. Well, if you have natural ingredients, why do you need coloring? I mean, this is natural ginger ale and you can see it looks like ginger ale and all it has is fresh ginger, lime juice, sugar and soda water, and best of all, it tastes a heck of a lot better. To make the ginger ale, we're going to start by making a ginger syrup. And for that, we're going to start by putting three quarters of a cup of chopped ginger into your pot and add one cup of water. Now, this is a little bit of a different process for making the ginger ale than the ginger beer because the ginger notes on this are going to be a lot more subtle. So if you're wondering why we're doing it differently, that's why. Add medium heat. You're going to bring the mixture to a low simmer and you're going to want to keep it covered as we simmer it for about 45 minutes. And then after that, take it off and let it steep for another 20 minutes. Next, you're just going to use a strainer to separate any little bits. Now, you're not going to get a whole lot out of the ginger, even though it's been sitting for a bit, but it's always a good thing just to try and see what you can get. Because anytime you boil any sort of root, if there's any moisture still left in there, that is going to be some of the strongest, most flavorful juice. Next, we're going to add our sugar. If you're feeling extra dextrous, you can try doing it just with a measuring cup or, you know, take the safe and easy route like I did with a little funnel. Cap it off and give it a good shake. Well, this looks pretty dark. This is going to be lighter in flavor than if we just juice straight ginger and push it through cheesecloth. This is the big difference between a ginger ale and a ginger beer in terms of its flavor. But now that we have this, we're going to get another vessel and add ginger syrup, lime juice, and seltzer water. So there you have it. You can either have your ginger ale from the store that has natural flavors, or you can make a great ginger ale at home that has actual natural flavors. Cheers from Drinks Made Easy.