first try at ginger ale

Today I tried my first attempt at ginger ale I was not impressed.....I constantly have on hand force carbonated water in a 5 gal keg........I used "Homebrew Extract" and splenda as per ratio in directions (substituting splenda for sugar) wanted to know if anyone has added anything to the basic extract to make it more to their liking......mine turned out to be too strong of ginger smell I think...........I used a 1/2 tbs of extract since I was making it up in a 2 liter soda bottle. Any suggestions for additives to make it a little better or should I just start from scratch with ginger roots and zest?

Thank you and Happy New Years to All

My first inclination would be to add more ginger. But from the post, it sounds like that's the opposite of what you want. Personally though, I think that ginger ale/soda is an easy enough soda that you can skip the extract and make it from ginger and citrus and spice.

Rootbeer and cola are two I'd probably find a way to adjust since getting the ingredients would be a pain.

I also tried cola from same company it was really bad.........I know that I am comparing it to Pepsi..........Newville is a Pepsi town as we have a Pepsi facily here.......but I wasted my money on that extract also...........My sasparilla turned out pretty tasty though..........but my favorite was the real root beer made from sasafrass and other real stuff.....Cheers

Honestly... I'd probably go to that facility and see if I could get a Pepsi syrup discount to buy a box of the stuff (if I even liked pepsi, it's too sweet for me...but... I wonder how it would be if I upped the carbonation since it's usually flat to me.) I'd go see them about a few varieties of mountain dew though.

For ginger sodas, I think that one is pretty simple since there are minimal ingredients, especially compared to a cola.