Is there ginger in gingerale? Was there ever?


I'm not sure where this tradition got started, but in my family we've
always given gingerale to people with respiratory ailments, had it on
hand as a cocktail mixer, but drank it at no other time. I understand
that fresh or dried ginger is supposed to have some good effect for
helping people with a little asthma or a bad cold breathe better.


I remember being a little girl when friends of my parents brought them
an unusual gift of a fancy decorated pot with a pale substance in it.
My parents never cooked with much in the way of spices so I wasn't
familiar with it, but my father told me to smell it. I did, thought for
a moment and then announced "gingerale!" The gift was dried ginger
which I'd never seen before, but I recognized the smell of ginger.


So here it is 35 years later, and I'm buying gingerale for Jim's cough,
and I'm looking at the ingredients of the different brands: Schweppes,
Canada Dry and Polar. I can't see that any of them have ginger in them.
I taste the Canada Dry when I get home. It bears no resemblence to
fresh ginger. So I think that maybe the name has nothing to do with the
original product except that doesn't explain how I knew real dried
ginger smelled like gingerale all those years ago.


Now for the harder question. What if I wanted to make a ginger flavored
soft drink at home? Has anyone tried this? Squeeze ginger into a
seltzer or something?


--Lia