Sparkling ginger and blood orange. Ready?

Just threw it together.

Some ginger I put through the mandolin
One blood orange juice and zest
One Myers(?) lemon juice and zest
2.2L water
1 3/4 cups sugar.
1/4 tsp champagne yeast.

Steeped the ginger while I brought the water to boil. Whisked in sugar. Added juice and zest at flame out. No chill over night. Pitched yeast Thursday morning. Tasted great out of the pot.

Bottles are firm. How can I tell if it's done?

Maybe you and I shop at the same grocery chain which had a one day sale on blood oranges yesterday. They were out when I got there, and it may be another year until they are sold for an affordable amount around here. I can hardly believe anyone around here knew what a blood orange even was.

Anyway it wouldn't do me much good because I'm too lazy to juice them. I have discovered that only by juicing do you get that sublime taste; otherwise the skin of the segments (not the rind) spoil the taste because they are somewhat like grapefruit in introducing bitterness that masks the taste. In your case I guess only carbonic acid may overpower the rasberryish blood orange sweetness.

One last digression... I think the US ones are hardly a shadow of the ones sold in Italy. Note that I don't say "grown" in Italy. It seems to be a frequent practice to take your one acre in Sicily and pile it head high in blood oranges imported from north Africa. Then you fraudulantly get a big subsidy for producing "local" specialty crops.

Perhaps the taste of blood oranges like wine grapes benefit from hostile growing conditions, like in north Africa and unlike California. Anyone who hasn't drunk fresh squeezed blood orange juice in Italy almost hasn't lived, and will question what this fuss is about.

That's a shame to hear. I strained the the zest out when I bottled. I hope that helps some. Thanks for the advise. I have 2 blood oranges, if there still good, I may make another bottle just with juice.


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"Bottles are firm. How can I tell if it's done?"

Firm bottles, I assume they're standard plastic commercial soda bottles you used, is a good indication that the soda is carbonated and ready to drink.