Procedures

Alright! In a non-reactive saucepan add the roots, bark, vanilla, anise, and water then bring to a simmer. You are getting all those nummy flavors out, kinda like making tea, so simmer slowly for ten minutes.

Now throw in that pinch of baking soda. You gotta do this to get any bitterness and acidity from any tannins you might of extracted, in root-beers tannins equal nasty.

Toss in the sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves. Now strain out all those solid bits and cool the syrup and mix in that booze! (The alcohol will help to keep it from freezing too hard)

The syrup is what's going to flavor your ice! If you wanted to do a fruit ice like say cherry you would puree 3 cups of the fruit with sugar... way less than above because fruits already have sugar... roots and barks, not so much. For a fruit puree I would only do 2-3 tablespoons of sugar or even better... HONEY!

Any-who. Lets do this in batches. Get a freezer-proof tray ready by tossing it in the freezer. Get out the food processor (mine is a 7 cup model) and throw in a cup of ice. Now cover your ears and pulse. Ones its broken down a bit turn that bad boy on full throttle and add a third of the flavoring in through the feed shoot until its pretty well mixed. Toss into the pan in the freezer. Do this until you run through the ice and flavoring.

After an hour, scrape with a fork (like making granita) crushing and solid bits. Freeze another hour, stir and serve. Enjoy!