As summer creeps on and the weather turns hot and sluggish, nothing quenches the thirst quite like root beer. Notes of vanilla and wintergreen combine in one syrupy sweet, fizzy drink that’s delicious served over ice or in a float with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It’s a distinctly American drink, one you’re not likely to find outside of the country.
The 1st Root Beers
Real root beer exudes a delightful old-world charm, boasting an eccentric medley of wild medicinal plants. For generations, home brewers foraged for roots, barks, flowers, and leaves, boiling them together to make a wort—an inky concoction that, when you add yeast, ferments to a probiotic drink that’s loaded with gut-friendly live cultures. Home-brewed root beers bear a closer resemblance to kombucha, the fermented tea that has become wildly popular in the past decade, than they do beer.These small beers and similar naturally fermented herbal-infused drinks played a central role in most people’s diets for centuries. For most of human history, safe drinking water was scarce and waterborne diseases, such as dysentery, were not only prevalent, but a significant public health concern. The brewing process of root beer, and similar drinks, created a beverage that was safe to drink.
To make root beer, brewers gathered local wild herbs and boiled them in water. Boiling killed off potential pathogens and made the resulting liquid potable. Beyond making potentially unsafe water potable, brewers took the additional step of fermentation. Fermentation produced an acidic and very mildly alcoholic beverage. Both the acidity and alcohol made it difficult for most pathogens to survive, making root beer much safer to drink than water. In addition, these lightly fermented brews were also teeming with live cultures, similar to what you find in other fermented foods and drinks such as yogurt, kefir, and kombucha at grocery stores today.
Herbs were central to root beer, and most of them were gathered by hand from the wilds and recipes varied depending on regional plants. Roots, naturally, were the primary source of flavor for early root beers and they typically included sassafras, sarsaparilla, burdock, and sometimes ginger or licorice. Other herbs often added flavor, including juniper berries, hops, birch bark, and wintergreen leaf.
Many of these herbs were heralded as medicinal tonics, making root beer somewhat of a health drink. Birch bark is a rich source of salicylic acid, which is related to aspirin, and has anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. Both burdock root and ginger root are traditionally used to support digestion, and sassafras, from which root beer gets its primary flavor, was thought to clear the blood and favored as a springtime tonic.
The Modern-Day Drink
By the late 19th century, an ingenious pharmacist named Charles Hires began to package the herbs with instructions for preparing root beer at home. People no longer needed to forage to craft their favorite drink and, instead, ordered the ingredients by mail. His mail-order business would later be sold and resold, and eventually become Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Hires’s clever marketing drove interest in root beer, lauding the medicinal value of the herbs and referring to it as the “World’s Healthiest Beverage.”Within a few short decades, soda fountains became popular. Now, root beer fans didn’t need to trouble themselves with foraging or even brewing their own. Rather, they could order it at their local shop. This version, however, was different from the one their grandparents knew. Instead of acquiring its fizz and foam from fermentation, the herbs were turned into a sweet syrup that was carbonated with soda water.
By the 1970s, two of the drink’s herbs came under scrutiny of the FDA: sassafras and sarsaparilla. They contain a phytochemical called safrole, and studies had found that animals fed vast quantities of the compound showed liver damage in the lab. Those studies also found that safrole was potentially carcinogenic. In 1976, it was banned for use in food and beverages. Other common culinary herbs also contain safrole, such as cinnamon, black pepper, and nutmeg, but escaped the ban unscathed. While sassafras was banned, demand for root beer remained and manufacturers adapted by using various natural and artificial flavorings in their soft drinks.
Homemade Root Beer, 2 Ways
You can still brew your own root beer the traditional way. Sassafras and similar herbs are widely available from herb suppliers such as Mountain Rose Herbs and Starwest Botanicals, but it can be expensive and laborious, and many people find the bitter, medicinal quality of traditional root beer off-putting in comparison to the modern version. Still, it’s a worthy project for the dedicated home brewer.Alternatively, preparing a simple syrup flavored with root beer extract, such as Watkins, and mixing it with carbonated water can work, too. It won’t exactly be teeming with health benefits, but it’s still a step above the store-bought bottles loaded with high-fructose corn syrup.
Herbal Root Beer
Sassafras, sarsaparilla, ginger, and other herbs give this traditional, homemade root beer recipe its distinct, aromatic flavor. And it’s naturally fermented with lots of probiotics and plenty of fizz. You’ll need a starter culture to make this, and fresh raw kombucha works. Please note that fermented drinks are volatile, so take care when opening the bottles.- 10 cups water
- 3 tablespoons sarsaparilla root
- 1 tablespoon ginger root
- 1 tablespoon licorice root
- 2 teaspoons dandelion root
- 2 teaspoons birch bark
- 1 star anise pod
- 1/4 cup sassafras root bark
- 3/4 cup unrefined cane sugar or molasses
- 1/2 cup starter culture (ginger bug, kombucha, etc.)
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn down the heat to medium-low. Simmer for 30 minutes, then stir in the sassafras bark, and continue simmering for another 15 minutes.
Turn off the heat and stir in the sugar until it dissolves. Next, allow the decoction to cool to room temperature—about 2 hours.
Strain decoction, discarding the herbs. Stir in the ginger bug, and pour into flip-top bottles—allowing at least 1 to 2 inches of headspace in each bottle.
Ferment the root beer at room temperature about 2 days, allowing more time during cold weather. Transfer to the fridge for 3 days to allow the bubbles to set, and serve cold over ice. Store in the fridge and consume within 1 month.
Homemade Root Beer
Instead of foraging for your herbs and fermenting a traditional brew, you can make your own root beer with an extract and simple syrup. It’s fast, simple, and easy. There are many root beer extracts on the market, but Watkins sells a particularly nice version.- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon root beer extract
- Sparkling mineral water, to serve
Fill a glass with ice and sparkling water, and then drizzle a spoonful of the syrup into the glass, adding additional syrup if you like. Store leftover syrup in the fridge for up to 1 month.
