Ginger beer

Ginger beer is a spicy, cloudy, naturally fizzy drink built from fresh ginger, sugar, water and a squeeze of citrus, far sharper and more peppery than the pale, mild ginger ale it is often confused with. The Victorian original was a genuinely brewed beverage, fermented with a living ginger-and-sugar starter so that wild yeasts and bacteria turned it into a lightly alcoholic, prickly, lemony tonic. Most of what is sold today is a non-alcoholic soft drink, force-carbonated rather than fermented, but the good versions keep the hallmark of the real thing — a bright, hot, gingery burn that grips the back of the throat. It is drunk cold over ice on its own and is the fiery backbone of the Moscow Mule and the Dark and Stormy.