Right then, I did another two lots,
First one
2lt water
Half star anise
one med sized chilli
Lime zest and half of the juice
250gms dark sugar
50gms white sugar
A stack of ginger
Bring it all to the boil, simmer till it's reduced (this one went down to about 850ml)
Left it over night
Strained it into a bottle
result - quite a strong drink, still sweet, better with the chilli in it for some bight as there's not a lot of ginger taste that's come through, some but not a lot.
I see this one as an interesting improvement on my first try but i'd not aim to make it again, although I will be making one with a bigger chilli and no star anise just to see
Second one
2lt water
couple of the spikes of the star anise
a few little bits of chilli taken from the other one
Lime zest and half of the juice
250gms light brown sugar
50gms white sugar
A stack of ginger
This one reduced down to about 900ml
result - I think this is the better tasting of the two, less liquorish flavour, more bite from the ginger, a lighter drink, partly down to the sugar as well.
I think that this would be the base that I move on from in trying new recipes, a bit more chilli to this, no star anise, slightly less sugar.
I've ordered some of the ginger concentrates you can get to see what they're like. I think the biggest thing for me is that I'm getting little bite from teh ginger through, this may be because of the strength of the star anise and too much sugar.