Homemade sassafras root beer

Every summer I head east to spend some time with my goddaughter Piper and her sisters Alden and Reilly on the Massachusetts shore south of Cape Cod. In what has now become a yearly tradition, we dig for clams to make stuffies, pick rose hips for rose hip jelly, and gather sassafras roots for homemade root beer. Credit for the root beer goes to Hank Shaw who taught me all about how to make root beer from sassafras on one of his return trips from the east coast. Sassafras grows wild all over the eastern United States and Canada and was the traditional root for what we call root beer here.

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Before I get into the details about how to identify the plant and how to make the root beer, a disclaimer is in order. The key ingredient in sassafras is safrole, which the FDA banned for commercial use in food in the early 60s because studies found that rats fed enormous amounts of the stuff developed cancer or liver damage. But here's the rub. According to a government agency that extrapolates human exposure needed based on rodent carcinogens (see the links below the recipe), if you drank a sassafras root beer a day, you would still have much less carcinogenic risk than if you drank beer or wine. You would have to drink a LOT of this stuff over a long period of time for there to be a problem, and at those amounts, the sugar in that much root beer would probably be much more toxic for you than the safrole. So remember my mom's advice, "all things in moderation". Disclaimer over.
Homemade Sassafras Root Beer Recipe Print Options

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 30 minutes

Hank likes to add a drop or two of mint extract to the sassafras syrup, which adds a nice note.
Add to shopping list Ingredients

• Several roots (including some green stems) from sassafras saplings, about 30-40 inches worth of 1/4-inch thick roots (enough to fill one cup when you chop them into 1/2-inch pieces)
• 4 cups water
• 2 cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon anise seeds (can sub fennel)
• 4 allspice berries
• 1-inch of stick cinnamon
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 quarts soda water

Method


1 Scrub the roots clean of any dirt. Cut the roots into 1/2-inch long pieces. (The roots can be tough, if you have a pair of pruning shears, they work great to cut the roots.) If you have a few green stems, you can include them too, but you should have mostly roots. Cut up as much as you need to fill one cup. Put the roots into a small pot and cover with 4 cups of water. Add the cloves, anise seeds, allspice berries, and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer for 25 minutes. Add the molasses and simmer for 5 minutes more. Remove from heat.
2 Strain through cheesecloth or a fine mesh sieve lined with a paper towel. Rinse out the pot. Return the liquid to the pot. Add the sugar, heat until just a simmer and the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool.
3 To assemble the root beer, fill a glass with ice cubes, add the syrup and soda water in a 1:2 ratio, so 1/3 cup of syrup to 2/3 cups of soda water. Add more soda water if you want it more diluted, add more syrup if you want it stronger.