Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1885-08-12
Making Ginger Ale.
IFrOm the New York Sun.
all.


"The demand for ginger ale," said a
prominent manufacturer of that arti.
Gle, increases very rapidly. When
started in it years ago there were not
more than twenty in the business.
The most OF my business now is man
ufacturlng the extract for others to
put into potable form, and these 9TH
ers have grown from thirty to about
five hundred. In the main, all the
makers use the same formula and
method. They mix the extract with
pure sugar strip, dilute with water
until an ordinary bottle contains
about fifteen drops of ginger, and then
put this into bottles with a carbonic
acid machine. Two qualities are
made, one, the better, for private use
and tirst-class hotels and saloons, and
q second for the general bar-room
trade. The difference is almost entire
ly IN the quality of the extract en-
ployed. With the first, we make a
ginger ale which sells for 81 or $1.2O
per case Of twenty-four bottles; the
second runs from so to IS cents a
case. 1t may surprise you to know
that three-fourths of the so-called i'm
ported article is made here. The bot
ties belonging to favorite brands are
carefully kept and sent to us regularly
to be filled. We leave the labels intact
or paste on fac-similes, and put in
new corks and metal capsules or tags.
There is not one person in a thousand
who can tell the difference. In one
first-class hotel [ have been filling and
retilllng the same old bottles now for
seven years, and | think it will keep on
as long as [ live"
els there no bad ginger ale in the
market 20
eyes; there are two bad kinds, and
both SO bad that the board of health
should stop their manufacture. They
are made in large quantities here in
New York and Brooklyn, and sold
chiefly to beer-saloons and ice-cream
stores. One kind is made from cheap
ginger, and is doctored with the ex-
tract of red pepper and other chemicals
to give it body and bite. The men
who make it claim that red pepper is
good for the stomach, but they never
refer to the other chemicals. The
other and worst kind is made by a
few German establishments. Instead
OF using pure extract, they buy up,
wherever they can, condemned and
spoiled ginger root. Some of them
make their own extract from this, and
reinforce it with cayenne. Others
grind it up and brew vile ale from it,
which they finish with cayenne and
glucose. You can easily tell this last
class by letting it stand after being
opened. The yeast continues to work
and the ale turns sour, and then
putrid. Drinking it is just as bad as
drinking sour beer. It's cheapness
recommends it, however, to unscrupu-
lous saloon-keepers. 1t never costs
more than so cents a case, and fire.
quently goes as low as 38 cents. Re-
tailed at 10 cents, it yields larger
profit than any article sold across the
| bar.
f'It's a nice business, but has its
drawbacks. Despite every precaution
and safeguard, the bottles every now
and then explode and do damage
Last winter, while watching the bot
tier at work, the head of a large
Brooklyn establishment was struck
by the fragments of q bottle that
burst, and had his left eye cut in hall
as clean as if done with q knife. In
fact, you'll hardly meet q man in the
business who cannot show you scars
similarly obtained"