Why we freeze our ginger shots (and skip HPP)

Three ways to keep a shot fresh

A fresh-pressed ginger shot won't last long left as it is, so every brand has to preserve it somehow. There are three routes you'll come across. The oldest is heat pasteurising, which cooks the juice to make it shelf-stable. The one most modern shots now use is HPP, or high-pressure processing, which uses intense cold pressure rather than heat. And then there's freezing, which is what we do: cold-press the raw root and freeze it at its peak.

Most of the cold-pressed shots you'll spot in a supermarket chiller are HPP. It's a genuine step up from heat, and if you're choosing between a heat-pasteurised shot and an HPP one, HPP is the better juice. But it's still a treatment applied after pressing, and it still means the shot sits in a chiller for weeks or months before you drink it. Freezing skips that entirely.

What HPP does, and what it doesn't

HPP, high-pressure processing, is what most cold-pressed shots in the chiller now use. The pressed juice is sealed in its bottle, then loaded into a chamber and put under enormous cold pressure, around 87,000 psi, which kills off the microorganisms that would otherwise spoil it. Crucially, there's no heat involved, so HPP keeps far more of the fresh-pressed taste and character than the old heat method ever did. It's a real advance, and it's why supermarket cold-pressed juice tastes as good as it does.

So we're not going to pretend HPP is bad, it isn't. But it's worth being clear about what it is. It's still a preservation step done to the juice after pressing, and its whole purpose is to let the shot sit in a chiller for weeks, sometimes months, before you drink it. Some in the industry take the view that any juice lasting well beyond a week has been preserved in some form, HPP included. And research on high-pressure juice notes that enzymes left active in the bottle can still slowly shift the aroma and character over that long chilled shelf life. The juice on the shelf in month three isn't quite the juice that went in.

Where heat pasteurising fits in

Heat pasteurising is the older route, and it's the one HPP largely replaced for premium juice. It heats the juice to make it shelf-stable, which works, but heat isn't neutral. Cooking fresh ginger, even briefly, nudges its chemistry the same way cooking changes any fresh ingredient. Fresh ginger's bright, sharp character comes from a compound called gingerol, and heat shifts gingerol towards the warmer, more muted compound found in dried ginger, the same shift covered in fresh ginger versus powder. You'll still find heat-treated shots, often the cheaper, longer-life ones, but most quality cold-pressed brands moved to HPP precisely to avoid that cooked step.

Why we freeze instead

Freezing preserves without any treatment at all, no heat and no pressure step. We cold-press the raw root, then flash-freeze the shot quickly, which holds it at its freshest from the moment it's pressed until you defrost it. There's nothing done to the juice to make it last on a shelf, because it isn't trying to last on a shelf. It's paused, cold, at peak, and it waits in your freezer instead of a chiller. It's the same approach across our cold-pressed shots, ginger, turmeric and beetroot alike.

Set against HPP, which is the fairest comparison since that's what most good shots use, the difference is time and treatment. An HPP shot is pressure-treated so it can sit chilled for weeks or months, slowly changing as it goes. A frozen shot skips the treatment and skips the sitting, so what you drink is much closer to ginger juiced there and then. The trade is entirely on your side, not the shot's: a frozen shot needs a freezer and a night's notice rather than living in the fridge. Keep them frozen, move one to the fridge the evening before, and it's thawed and ready by morning.

Why processing method interests scientists

The way ginger is processed isn't only a taste question, it's something food scientists study directly. Research into ginger and into juice more broadly distinguishes between fresh, dried, heated, high-pressure and frozen forms, precisely because processing changes the balance of compounds like gingerol and shogaol, and because enzymes left active after cold processing can keep altering a juice slowly in storage. Heat shifts the balance most; high pressure preserves more but doesn't fully stop the clock; cold storage pauses it hardest. That's why the form and processing of ginger matter to how any study is read, and part of why ginger is such a well-examined root.

Lou, our nutrition advisor, keeps the framing honest here: this is a reason to care about how a shot is made, not a claim that a frozen shot will do something an HPP or heat-treated one won't. What you can say plainly is that freezing avoids any preservation treatment and any long chilled shelf life, so the shot stays closer to fresh-pressed ginger. If you want to go deeper on the food science, read it yourself and form your own view. The everyday takeaway is simple: the less done to the juice, and the less time it spends waiting, the closer it stays to fresh.

Frozen vs HPP vs heat, side by side

How the three preservation routes compare:

	Frozen (ours)	HPP	Heat pasteurised
Preserved by	Cold, no treatment	Cold high pressure	Heat
Ginger character	Kept closest to fresh-pressed	Mostly kept, drifts over shelf life	Shifted by the heat step
Time before you drink it	Frozen at peak, paused	Weeks to months chilled	Months on the shelf
Storage	Freezer, defrost before drinking	Chiller	Cupboard or shelf
Best suits	Freshest taste, a bit of planning	Fresh-ish taste, grab and go	Longest life, lowest cost

Living with a frozen shot

Frozen sounds like more effort than it is. The routine is simple: keep your shots in the freezer, and the night before you want one, move it to the fridge. By morning it's thawed and ready to drink in one go. Once thawed, treat it like the fresh product it is and drink it within a few days rather than leaving it sitting.

That's the small habit that makes the freezing worth it. You're trading a fridge slot for a freezer slot and a night's notice, and in return you get the shot at its freshest rather than one that's been sitting chilled in a shop for weeks. For most people who take one most mornings, it quickly becomes second nature.

Cold-pressed and frozen fresh

The bottom line

Every ginger shot is preserved somehow, and the method matters. Most cold-pressed shots in the chiller are HPP, high-pressure treated so they last chilled for weeks or months, which is a genuine step up from the old heat method but still a treatment that leaves the juice sitting before you drink it. We freeze at peak instead, no heat, no pressure step, no long chilled shelf life, so what you drink stays closest to fresh-pressed ginger. The cost is on your side, a freezer slot and a night's notice, and the payoff is the freshest version of the shot. Keep them frozen, move one to the fridge the night before, and drink it in the morning. That's the whole routine, and it's why we do it this way.