Ginger beer is one of the only beers I can drink since I’m allergic to alcohol. And it’s oh so delicious. Spicy and refreshing without the overt sweetness of ginger ale.

The easiest way we’ve found to integrate homemade ginger beer at the bar is with a rich ginger syrup. Thanks to @kyleepuu and @codyonizuka for supplying several pounds of local hawaiian ginger from the farmer’s market. Look at the GARGANTUAN ginger modeling with @kyleepuu!

We’ll start with making the rich ginger syrup with a recipe courtesy of @dr_joey, Hawaii’s legendary mixologist:

For the ginger syrup reduction:

• 1 lb of fresh local hawaiian ginger
• 32 oz sugar
• 64 oz water

Wash the ginger with the skin on, and then pound the ginger with a textured meat mallet to open up the ginger. Place the ginger under a broiler until golden brown and then flip to get both sides the same way. This caramelizes the sugars in the ginger for extraction during the reduction process.

Once the ginger is nicely toasted, bring the 64 oz of water to a boil, and add the sugar and ginger. Keep it boiling until the mixture reduces to 32 oz. Strain out the ginger and let cool, place the cooled ginger syrup into a clean bottle and keep refrigerated.

The added depth of caramelized ginger makes this rich ginger syrup AMAZING!

To make the ginger beer, we add 1 oz of rich ginger syrup to 3 oz of soda water.

And one of the perfect drinks to showcase ginger beer is the Dark ‘N Stormy.

Dark ‘N Stormy

• 2 oz Gosling’s Black Seal Rum
• Top with ginger beer
• Top with a dash of Angostura Bitters
• Served over ice with a lime wedge

We’re happy to join in on the monthly online cocktail party known as Mixology Monday. This month’s MxMo is hosted by Filip of Adventures in Cocktails, and the theme he chose for is Niche Spirits.

“June’s theme will be “favorite niche spirit”, so any cocktail where the base ingredient is not bourbon, gin, rum, rye, tequila, vodka etc would qualify. So whether you choose Mezcal or Armagnac get creative and showcase your favorite niche spirit.”

Here at Wang Chung’s, we’re going to feature an original cocktail created by one of our patrons, Tanis. It’s called “Ginger ‘N Maryann” and features Domaine de Canton Liqueur.

“Domaine de Canton is a French ginger liqueur comprised of eau-de-vie and VSOP and XO Grande Champagne Cognacs, which themselves are produced using fresh Tahitian vanilla beans, Provencal honey and Tunisian ginseng. The ginger comes from fresh, baby Vietnamese ginger and adds a wonderful flavor profile to this unique distilled spirit.”

We love using fresh juices here, and what makes this cocktail unique is that we use locally fresh squeezed pineapple juice from Govinda’s. If you’ve never tried fresh squeezed pineapple juice, the first thing you’ll immediately notice is the thickness followed by the super fresh flavor. It’s a life-changing experience. Govinda squeezes gallons and gallons of fresh juices every morning, and do so without pasteurization and destroying the flavors and enzymes in the juices. The shelf-life is so much shorter, but the flavor and quality is unbeatable, and we all deserve to have the best tasting cocktails with the best ingredients!

Ginger ‘N Maryann

• 1.5 oz Domaine de Canton Liqueur
• 1.5 oz Cointreau
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• top with fresh pineapple juice
• Serve over ice in Collins glass, garnish with lime wedge