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The Dry Pour July 5, 2026

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Honey Ginger Syrup

Honey, fresh ginger and water — the syrup that makes a plain soda taste like someone made it for you.

beClink Editorial · July 5, 2026

Honey ginger syrup in an open jar with a wooden dipper, beside a box grater and fresh ginger root on a wooden board.

Time

10 min

Serves

14

Glass

Bottle or jar

This is the one to make if you are only making one. Ginger brings heat and a long finish, honey brings weight that plain sugar has no way of giving, and together they turn soda water into a drink and a cup of hot water into something worth sitting down with. It takes ten minutes and it improves for a day in the fridge.

Ingredients

  • 100 gFresh ginger, grated
  • 200 mlHoney
  • 200 mlWater
  • 1Lemon peel (optional)

Method

  1. Grate the ginger coarsely on a box grater. Do not bother peeling it — the flavor sits just under the skin, and grating rather than slicing gives far more surface area, so more of it ends up in the syrup.
  2. Put it in a pan with the water and bring to a bare simmer. Hold it there for ten minutes, uncovered.
  3. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the honey until it dissolves. Adding honey off the heat keeps its aroma, which boiling destroys.
  4. Add the lemon peel if you are using it, and leave everything to cool together.
  5. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing the pulp with the back of a spoon to get the last of it. Bottle and refrigerate — good immediately, better the next day.

Make it yours

More ginger, less time

Double the ginger and simmer five minutes instead of ten. Sharper and brighter, with less of the earthy note.

Add chili

One split red chili in with the ginger. Removes cleanly at the strain, and the heat lands at the back rather than the front.

Half honey, half sugar

Cheaper, cleaner, and it lets the ginger lead. The version to make if honey is taking over.

Maple

Woody rather than floral. Very good in anything with apple or in hot water on a cold evening.

Turmeric

A thumb, sliced in with the ginger. Earthier, and it turns the syrup a color worth looking at.

Lemongrass

Two stalks, bruised. Takes the whole thing somewhere Southeast Asian and suits sparkling water and lime.

A ginger soda, or a mule

30ml syrup, the juice of half a lime, topped with sparkling water over plenty of ice. Add more lime and it is essentially a virgin Moscow mule — not ginger beer, which is brewed, but you set the heat yourself.

Hot

Two spoonfuls in hot water with a slice of lemon. The drink everybody makes when they feel rough, made properly.

How to serve & pair

Keep it in the fridge door and use it like a cordial. It is the rare component that makes a complete drink on its own — syrup, citrus and soda over ice, in about fifteen seconds — as well as doing the quiet work inside a longer recipe.

Common Questions

How long does honey ginger syrup keep?

Around two to three weeks refrigerated in a clean sealed bottle — shorter than a plain sugar syrup, because fresh ginger brings water and living matter with it. Make a smaller batch more often rather than a large one you are still working through in a month.

Grated or sliced, and do I peel it?

Grated, and no. Grating exposes far more of the ginger to the water than slicing does, so you get a stronger syrup from the same root — it just needs a fine sieve at the end rather than a colander. The skin adds nothing unpleasant and most of the flavor sits immediately beneath it, so peeling costs you time and some of the point.

Why add the honey off the heat?

Because heat drives off the aromatic compounds that make honey taste of anything in particular. Boil it and you are left with sweetness and a faint caramel note — which is fine, but at that point plain sugar would have been cheaper.

What can I use it in?

Anything that wants heat and body. It is the base of a homemade ginger soda with lime, it stands in for ginger beer at a pinch, it sweetens iced tea without flattening it, and two spoonfuls in hot water with lemon is a complete drink on its own.

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