This Effervescent Lemon Ginger Soda Will Delight

Marge (00:00:01) - Introducing the Bite Me Cannabis Club. The Bite Me Cannabis Club aims to be an inclusive online space for cannabis lovers. Whether you're simply curious about how cannabis can improve your life or you're fully seasoned, there's always more to learn. When you join the Bite Me Cannabis Club, you'll have access to like minded people interested in cannabis, monthly workshops, live Q&A recipes and recipe swaps, digital cookbooks, a fully functional chat feature, and a whole lot more for a limited time. It's only $5 a month with a 30 day free trial, so you can try it out and see if it's right for you. This isn't just another Facebook group or confusing discord channel. I carefully chose a platform that offers a clear, uncluttered, and seamless community experience. See for yourself. Join today! Say hello! I can't wait to connect with you there. Join the Bite Me Cannabis Club today link in your podcast app. Welcome back, friends. This week we are doing an effervescent lemon ginger soda. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your high life.

Marge (00:01:19) - I'm your host and certified Ganjier. Marge and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. And thank you for joining me today. It feels like it's been a while, and maybe because over the holidays I recorded a number of episodes all together and then kind of scheduled them for release. And I usually do a lot of scheduling for my social posts, so I take a bit of a break for myself, which was necessary. It was a busy holiday season and I hope you had a great one as well, but it feels like it's been a while since I've sat down in front of the mic and chatted with you all. So welcome! I'm glad you're here. Thank you for listening. This is 2024 and if you are listening to this in real time, as it were, and it's going to be a great year, I think lots of changes upcoming for myself personally and for the show and everything else that I'm doing, and I hope you'll follow along.

Marge (00:02:13) - If you've been a long time listener, I appreciate your support from the bottom of my heart. It means so much to me, and that's why I keep coming back to the mic week after week. And if you're new here, I hope you enjoy the episode. You get some value out of it and that you join me for the ride. Because I am all about the edibles. That is what keeps me going during life's ups and downs. Cannabis and edibles are the mainstay of my life, and they're there for me when I need them. However, I need them. So this year I'm going to do something a little bit different. I was doing for quite a few episodes before some cannabis fun facts and also some, uh, what else was I doing? I was doing some wise, my brain suddenly not wanting to cooperate. I was doing uses of hemp because there are so many fantastic uses of hemp that many people, myself included, before I started doing that series, knew that it was such a versatile plant.

Marge (00:03:13) - I mean, I think we all had an idea of, you know, you could use it to make paper and clothing and sales and rope and all that kind of thing, but it's being used for so much more. So that was embedded into many of my episodes, if you're listening to those ones, and if you go back a bunch, you then you'll catch them yourself. But this time, uh, listener generously sent me something super fun for Christmas. And what he sent me was stoner trivia. That was one of the things he sent me. And if you're listening to this, you know who you are. It was a much appreciated gift that put a smile on my face during the holidays. And I thought, how fun would it be for us together to race to 420? That's the point of the game your object is to collect, is to answer as many questions as you can, until you reach for 420 points. Now, I don't really have a practical way to do that for this particular episode, but I thought it'd be fun to pick a card from the deck and I would read it out and reveal the answer on next week's episode.

Marge (00:04:11) - And there may be some going out in my weekly newsletter as well. Maybe I'll do both. Haven't decided yet. Let me know if you have a strong opinion about it one way or the other, but it's going to pick a card out of the deck. Oh, and this is a movie one, and if you're keeping track, this particular card is worth 40 points. What's the name of the cannabis delivery service in the movie Half Baked? Mr. nice guy, puff snacks or happy delivery? So you movie fans out there who like to watch stoner movies. Maybe you'll have the answer to this. I have to admit that I have seen that movie, but it's been a long time, and I don't remember because I watched it probably years and years ago and only watched it once. There are a few stoner movies out there that I like, but a lot of them, I don't know. What was that? What was that Netflix show? Was it on Netflix? They did a series. A comedy series with.

Marge (00:05:11) - Oh, what was her name? Bates. Anyway, I never could get into it. I just there was something about it, the laugh track or. I think there was a lot of it was the laugh track. And some of it just seems so cliche that I could never get into it. Come back next week to find out the answer to that question. I guess you could google it in the meanwhile as well, but what's the fun in that? Let's. That's no fun. This week we're doing a. Lemon ginger soda, as I mentioned earlier, and let's get into it. So this recipe comes to you from. The queen of the kitchen herself, Martha Stewart. And the reason I kind of picked this one out is because around during the holidays, I don't even remember why I did it now. But during the holidays, I decided to buy myself a big bag of ginger. The ginger that I had was. Uh, it's pretty shriveled. There's only a couple of small pieces left, and I think they went into the compost, but I bought myself a big bag of ginger.

Marge (00:06:14) - And like I said, for the life of me, I can't remember why I bought it originally, but I had this big bag and I was like, well, now I have to do something with it. Otherwise it will go to waste. And there's nothing more than I hate than wasting food. I would love to say that I'm not guilty of it, but I'm human and it happens. That's just the way it is. So in an effort to not waste this big bag of organic ginger that I picked up from my local Asian grocery store, because the prices of ginger there are much more reasonable. In fact, the prices there are so much better for so many things. If you have access to a local store like that that specializes in those types of products, it's worth checking out. Because the store in my town, I bought this stuff, this gouging and pardon me if I've mispronounce that horribly, but I bought some of that stuff at my local Asian grocery store that's been there for like 30 years, probably longer.

Marge (00:07:03) - A little family run store that has brings in really fresh stuff every Thursday. But I bought this goji jing there and it was priced, I think, at 8.99 for this tub. And you'll probably see that featured in an upcoming episode, because I did buy it for a particular reason. But I was at another store a couple of weeks later. The exact same container, same brand, same size, same everything, and it was literally double the price. It was 1699. And I was like, wow. Like wow. At a time when things are so expensive. So if you have access to a store or a specialty store in your town, check it out because it's worth it's worth price shopping. I mean, when you could pay 16.99 versus 8.99, I mean. It's a no brainer. I was looking for fun things, or delicious things to do with the ginger that I had in this lemon. Lemon ginger soda piqued my interest because I was feeling the need for something fresh and effervescent, and this one was a really simple recipe.

Marge (00:08:09) - And usually Martha Stewart's recipes are pretty decent. Uh, I have made a couple before. I wasn't too crazy about them, but she's a huge brand and they've got a test kitchen, and they have the ability to, uh, practice a lot more in their kitchens than I do. So anyway, it also did have a one star, A15 star review. There's only one review, but it was a good one. So I thought, I mean, how hard can it be to mess this up? Actually, the review said delicious. I had brunch at a French bistro on Sunday and ordered a honey ginger soda. It was so delightful. Today is Thursday and I was craving the soda, so I googled and found this recipe. Let me tell you, it's a dupe. If it's not a little better, I will continue to make this. It was so simple I use pineapple. I used a pineapple wedge for my garnish. Now that's a relevant point because she recommends using a little ginger slice of ginger or whatever for garnish.

Marge (00:09:02) - But when I ended up making it the first time, I didn't use anything for garnish because I was not feeling garnishee that day. But this, according to the website, takes ten minutes, ten minutes total to make. And I can say with some certainty that I would agree with that assessment. Except when I made it. I also did carb some weed and infused some honey beforehand, so the process took a little bit longer. But the actual lemon ginger soda itself was really quick to make, and I thought it was going to have more of that ginger punch that we're probably all very familiar with, but. It didn't. It was really delightful. And I think that's the combination of the lemon and the honey obviously made it tempered the sharpness of the ginger. So this is very drinkable. I have to admit that I have, if you're familiar with the ginger bug, I've made a ginger bug before to make, um. A ginger soda before a, uh. What are they? Ginger ale. Why am I.

Marge (00:09:58) - My brain is not working today. I don't know, it's been a long day, and I'm recording later in the day than I normally do, but I've made a ginger bud, and it's basically a bug. And it's basically like fermented ginger on your counter. It was like ginger and honey or sorry, sugar. I think it's been a while since I've done it. And then you can use it. It's a base, you can use it to make a whole bunch of other sort of sodas and that type of thing. And I remember I made a a ginger based soda with it with this ginger bug. And holy, was it medicinal tasting like the punch of ginger in your mouth when you drank? That was like. Was intense. And unless you're a huge ginger lover, that was probably not something you would enjoy. But this is something that even those who aren't huge fans of Ginger would probably be able to find this palatable. But I found it delicious. So. And it also happens to be the time of year where I know so many people.

Marge (00:10:53) - Thankfully, I'm not one of those, but I know so many people who have gotten sick and I feel like anytime you can nourish the body with some ginger and lemon and honey, which is essentially the ingredients in this recipe, along with some sparkling water and ice, I mean, it's going to be nourishing to your body as well as a refreshing drink. So basically you're going to peel some ginger and you're going to blend that in a blender with some water. Then you add to then you strain the ginger. So you end up with just the ginger juice. To that juice you're going to add some fresh lemon juice. I actually used jarred because that was one of it. That's what was available. And I didn't feel like juicing lemons works quite fine. I buy some organic lemon juice and then you add a quarter cup of honey. I infused the honey with CBD in this particular instance, because I was wanting to really play up the nourishing qualities of this effervescent drink. I think I just like saying effervescent and I and then you.

Marge (00:11:53) - So you mix all those three ingredients together, and then you take a glass, you put some ice in the glass, you put in two tablespoons of your ginger mix, and then you add sparkling water. You garnish and enjoy like literally that simple. And the fun thing about this particular recipe as well is that the ginger base can be stored in a container in the fridge for up to a week, and you can make multiple drinks with it. So just because I think they say here ten drinks if you're using two tablespoons per drink and of course the honey is infused, you might be thinking a quarter cup of honey is a lot. But when you think about how much is actually in that drink, it's just a touch of sweetness. It's so lovely and delicious, and you can obviously pretty it up by the glass that you put in the garnish that you choose, like the ginger or like this review person said they used pineapple. Whatever you happen to have, if you're serving it for other people and if you really like it, you could probably always double the batch as well.

Marge (00:12:53) - Or you could add THC infused honey instead. Or there's so many things you could do with this, but it's a great way to use up some ginger. Although frankly, I bought this big thing of ginger, this big bag of ginger, and I called for a quarter cup I was hoping to use more, so you might see some more ginger inspired recipes coming your way in the coming coming month or so, but this one was a really fun one to try. I think you'll enjoy it. And again, because it's so quick to put together and depending on how you infuse it, you can share this. Because I infused it with CBD, I can share it with other people who may not be so keen on getting high. I also sometimes like having CBD throughout the day, and I don't always. I don't always want to get high during the day, but I do like the the qualities that CBD brings to my body and so I can enjoy this drink throughout the day. And I'm not going to be worried about sugar content or anything like that as well, because it's quite reasonable.

Marge (00:13:47) - So this was a fun, delicious drink to make, and I encourage you all to try it because I think you'll enjoy it. And if you have any suggestions for ginger based recipes that I should try, I would love to hear them. Oh, that. That totally reminded me why I bought the ginger in the first place, and it was kind of intended for the show I was going to make. Um. Candied ginger because I haven't had that in a long time. And I love candied ginger and reminds me of my grandfather. My grandfather was British and he loved candied ginger. And when I was young and he was still alive, I didn't appreciate it. And I wish I had at the time because now I love it. Have you ever had those ginger chews as well? Oh, those things are so good at. I'll buy a package and then I'll end up eating them all. I suggest you try this recipe out and let me know what you think. And again, like I said, if you have any ginger based recipes that you really enjoy, let me know.

Marge (00:14:40) - So this this episode was a little bit on the shorter side, because I have to admit, I'm just getting back into the swing of things after a great holiday and time off and. Things are still progressing. As far as you know, I'm going to be moving soon and all that kind of things. So there's lots of stuff going on, as there probably are for all of you out there, and this drink is going to help me stay sane. So that's it for this week, my friends. As always, please share the episode with someone that you think might enjoy it, because word of mouth literally is the best way to spread the word about this show. And you can always talk to me. You can email me. There's the podcast hotline. If you want to share your voice with me, you can message me over on Instagram. That's the social platform that I'm most active on. You can always stay up to date with the newsletter or the Bite Me Cannabis Club, something I'm thinking about starting over there is live streaming.

Marge (00:15:31) - Some of my episodes may be starting with some interviews. I'm already kind of working on that, and it's free for the first 100 members. And of course, consider using the products and services on the Margie Recommends page, because that really helps support the show and keep help me keep these episodes coming to you. So that's it for this week. My friends. I'm your host, Mark. And until next time, stay high. Are you tired of trying edibles that are inconsistent and strength and flavor? Attempting to figure out your tolerance? Do you want to take control of your edibles experience and find the optimum combination of factors that results in the best outcome? If so, this edibles journal is perfect for you. The Bite Me Edibles Journal provides a convenient and organized way for you to track and record your edibles experience. Whether it's homemade edibles or store bought, it includes 48 fillable pages. It sized eight and a half by 11 for plenty of writing. Space includes information on calculating the potency of homemade edibles, and it was created by an edibles expert.

Marge (00:16:34) - Whether you're a seasoned edibles enthusiast or just starting out on your cannabis journey, the Bite Me Edibles Journal is an essential tool for anyone interested in enjoying their edibles to the fullest. Take control of your high life with this convenient and helpful resource. Add it to your Amazon cart today! Tap the link in the show notes.