Since going carnivore, I'm not drinking any juice, or soda, mostly nothing but water (occasionally, tea or coffee).

Water is fine for me, but sometimes I want something a little different.

So I remembered that years ago I'd been to a Christmas event at somebody's home, where a hot spiced mulled wine drink was made. It was fine at the beginning, but a few hours later, when it had been steeping even longer in the spices and particularly GINGER, it was really, really strong, and had a very powerful ginger flavor.

Thinking back to that, we had some fresh ginger in the house, and I decided to use that as a flavoring for a cool drink. So I chopped up a 1 inch hunk of ginger into little bits, and let it seep in 2 cups of hot water for about 30 minutes. I tasted it and it was quite strong.

Next I filtered out the ginger with a sieve, and poured it into a bottle.

This is my "ginger essence". Pouring a couple tablespoons into some cool water gives a really great but mild ginger flavor. I assume it'll keep for a pretty long time in the fridge.

After I made this, I thought back to visits to my grandmother, in Europe. She never bought any kind of sodas or juices, but she did have a large bottle of very concentrated fruit juice syrup - I think it was blackberry. You put a glug of this in some water, and presto - instant juice.

Both of these options - the ginger and the concentrated juice syrup - are so much cheaper than soft drinks or juice. Probably why you don't hear much about them anymore.

And I'm sure they're healthier as well, though I wouldn't do the syrup because of the sugar.