Sassafras and Homemade Root Beer

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

On Independence Day, what better wild ingredient to feature than Sassafras? The aromatic bark, leaves and roots were believed to be the first plant exported from North America to Europe, back in the late 1500s. All parts of this little tree make for delicious — and different — teas, sweets and other confections, and sassafras commanded exorbitant prices in Europe… until everyone started drinking sassafras tea to cure their syphilis. Soon no one wanted to be seen sipping their syphilis cure in public, and the sassafras trade withered. 

More recently, sassafras has been getting a bad rap by the folks at the USDA, who say that the active component of sassafras, safrole, is a “known carcinogen.” Why? They gave tons of pure safrole to rats and they got cancer. Later researchers noted that, like the whole saccharine scare in the late 1970s, safrole seems to cause cancer in rats — but not people. 

Still, many people still think that sipping sassafras tea or eating sassafras ice cream will doom you to a date with your oncologist. Just know that there are many times more “known carcinogens” in a bottle of beer than there are in any homemade sassafras product you might make. By one calculation, you’d need to drink 24 gallons of sassafras root beer a day for an extended time to get the amount of safrole fed to those rats. And if you drank that much soda, you’d have lots of other problems to deal with…

Armed with that knowledge, I was determined to collect some sassafras on our recent trip to New England. As we were walking around Cape Ann, I soon spotted the telltale mitten leaves of the tree. Sassafras is unmistakable: It is a spindly, shrubby tree that lives beneath larger trees. Its upper bark is green, and the leaves come in three varieties, often on the same branch — a mitten, a three-lobed leaf, and a simple spear-shaped leaf. 

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

The way you collect sassafras is to pull seedlings right out of the ground. I know, it sounds destructive, but it isn’t. Sassafras grows in clumps, and the parent tree sends out suckers under the ground, which then become seedlings; it’s a lot like mulberry. You find a clump — look for at least 8-10 treelings scattered about — go to one about 2-3 feet tall,  grasp the very base of the tree and yank it straight up. You should come away with the seedling and about 10 inches’ worth of the root. 

You did not get all of the root, you know, and this is a good thing. It will regrow later. So what seems a little wanton is actually good for the sassafras cluster — it lets the surrounding seedlings grow with less competition. 

All parts of this tree are useful. Notice I did not say “edible,” because the leaves are the only part you actually eat. You know them as file powder, and without sassafras leaves your gumbo would not be gumbo. 

I left the leaves of the seedlings I pulled with my sister and brother-in-law. They can make either tea or file powder from them. I took the twigs and roots back to California. 

Photo by Elise Bauer

What’s the difference? They make very different teas. The twigs have a lemony-floral flavor and aroma that one author has compared to Froot Loop cereal — not exactly a selling point in my book, but they are lovely. The roots, however, are the “root” in root beer. 

I am not a tea drinker. Coffee is my breakfast drink of choice. So I was not about to switch for sassafras. But I do like using flavored syrups from wild ingredients; I recently made a delicious fir tip syrup from the young tips of a Douglas fir tree. I then use these syrups to glaze meats, make homemade sodas, sorbets or ice creams. Sassafras is a prime candidate for this treatment. 

So the first thing I did was chop some twigs, peeling back the green bark a bit to expose it — the bark is what has most of the flavor — then simmered them in hot water. The brew quickly turned a pretty amber, a little like cola, if you mixed it half-and-half with water. I let it steep overnight and then strained it through cheesecloth and mixed it 50-50 with sugar to make a simple syrup. It was outstanding. I mean, really outstanding. Think root beer with a lot of lemon in it. 

Here’s how to make sassafras twig syrup. 

That was easy enough. But what I really wanted to make was homemade root beer. Root beer is my soda of choice, although I am also a big fan of good ginger ale. And I know how to make root beer at home, and it traditionally involves yeast and a small amount of alcohol — that’s the “beer” in root beer. I did not want to do this. Homemade ginger ale and root beers made with fermentation are tricky. I wanted a stable, non-alcoholic base flavoring I could then make into a soda by adding seltzer water. 

The first thing I knew I needed was to chop the sassafras roots. 

Photo by Elise Bauer

But root beer is not just sassafras, it is a concoction of many things. So I began poring through my old cookbooks, and on the interwebz for recipes. So many variations! After reading and reading, I decided to just go with things that a) were in lots of the recipes, b) I knew I liked, and c) we had available. 

I went heavy on the sassafras roots, plus some burdock root (it’s actually in a lot of the recipes!), molasses for color, one clove, a star anise, some coriander seed and one drop of peppermint extract. I’d wanted to use wintergreen but could not find it, and, while I thought about using some of my toothpaste, I thought better of it… 

I boiled the tea, strained it, then added the sugar to make it into a syrup. With some trepidation I sipped a spoonful. Holy crap! It actually tasted like, like… root beer! Maybe not the root beer you get in a can now, but then that no longer has any real sassafras in it. This was warm, and zingy, and, well, deliciously rooty! 

If you live near sassafras trees — and you do if you live east of the Great Plains, south of Quebec and north of Orlando — by all means make this syrup. If you don’t live there, or don’t feel like foraging, you can buy sassafras root bark online. You’ll never go back to store-bought root beer again. 

Photo by Elise Bauer

HOMEMADE ROOT BEER SYRUP

Now I know this is not a traditional root beer. Traditional root beer is brewed with yeast, is mildly alcoholic — and can be tricky to make. This recipe will give you a root beer flavored syrup that tastes amazing, is stable in the fridge for a year, and needs only seltzer water or club soda to become a wonderful homemade root beer.

You will need some unusual ingredients to make this, notably sassafras roots. If you happen to live in the United States east of the Great Plains, you are in luck: Sassafras grows everywhere in that region. If you don’t live there, or don’t feel like foraging for your own sassafras, you can buy sassafras root bark online.

The burdock in the recipe grows all around you, or at least a cousin of it does. It’s called curly dock. Use it if you can, as it’s free. Otherwise, many good supermarkets have burdock in the produce section: They are long pale, skinny roots often sold under their Japanese name “gobo.” If you absolutely cannot get your hands on burdock, skip it. The root beer will be different, but still fine.

If you can find it, get wintergreen extract. If not, use peppermint extract.

When you make your root beer, start with a tablespoon of this syrup to a pint of seltzer water. You can adjust the strength of your drink from there.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

• 6 cups of water
• 3 ounces of sassafras roots
• 1 ounce of burdock root
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 clove
• 1 star anise
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 2 drops wintergreen extract or peppermint extract
• 6 cups sugar