Ginger Cocktails

An old roommate of mine used to use ginger for everything: brewed in a tea for upset stomachs, pickled for nausea, candied for colds. But for all of its therapeutic uses, ginger turns up here most frequently in a whole different kind of medicine: the boozy kind.

Indeed, since its cocktail origins in the classic gin buck and its later star turn (raising vodka's ship along the way) in the Moscow Mule, ginger has shown that it can work with practically every spirit behind a bar. It's a natural with rum, as in a Dark and Stormy (not surprisingly, Jamaica is one of the world's largest ginger producers), while the Jack-and-ginger is a commonly ordered well drink.

Right now, every decent bar in town features at least one ginger cocktail. Some employ fresh ginger; others house-made ginger simple syrup; and some use purchased ginger beer (the best brands being Barrett's and Bundaberg) or make it themselves. Ginger beer appears with rye whiskey at Boulevard for the Rye Smile and with gin, mint, ginger syrup, lemon and ginger ale in Absinthe's Ginger Rogers (originally created by Marco Dionysos, the bartender now at Clock Bar).

"It's just an incredibly versatile ingredient," says Ryan Fitzgerald, a member of the all-star team that works behind the bar at Beretta. "And delicious," he adds. "Ginger's actually very easy to play around with. I like what we're doing here in making our ginger solution. We make it almost like a ginger purée with fresh, uncooked ginger and a not-so-sweet simple syrup, which makes it more versatile. We can always add sugar if we need to, and the ginger always comes through with a great bite."

I particularly like the way ginger has been deployed in two drinks I recently had at Beretta: unabashedly and with abandon. Fitzgerald marries fiery, homemade ginger beer with tequila in his intense version of the classic El Diablo cocktail (normally, a mixture of lime, tequila, crème de cassis and much milder ginger ale). It's a perky and delicious pink cocktail—perfect for summer.

Another gingery drink at Beretta is the Agricole Mule, a fusing of two classics—the mojito and the Moscow Mule. While you might think mint and ginger are too assertive to pair well, they actually complement each other beautifully. The addition of earthy, vegetal rhum agricole from Martinique sort of undercuts all the high-flying perfume to deftly balance the drink. Poured over ice, it's the perfect balance of hot and cold.

To make a ginger simple syrup, mix 1 cup of peeled, roughly chopped fresh ginger and 1 cup of simple syrup (equal portions water and sugar), place in a blender and purée for 5 minutes. Strain with a fine strainer.

8 to 10 mint leaves
1/2 ounce cane syrup
2 ounces La Favorite Rhum Vieux
1 ounce fresh lime juice
3/4 ounce ginger simple syrup
1 ounce seltzer water

In a cocktail shaker, muddle the mint in the cane syrup. Add the remaining ingredients, except the seltzer, and shake. Add the seltzer, and double strain into a glass with ice.

Ginger is the basis of this year's hottest new boutique liqueur: Domaine de Canton ($40). In a stylish bottle that resembles something between a piece of bamboo and a Chinese lantern, Domaine de Canton is a reinvention of a ginger liqueur once made in colonial French Indochina. The new version, which won "Best in Show" at the San Francisco International Spirits Competition last March, features ginger blended with cognac, ginseng, honey and vanilla to create a gorgeously complex drink that's spicy, but not too spicy, and sweet without going over the top. It's great for mixing but even better for just sipping slowly at the end of a long night. Available at John Walker Co., 175 Sutter St., 415-986-2707.