Teriyaki Sauce

I decided to add this sauce in though we've already been making it for well over a year and it's refrigerated instead of canned.  Not sure I'd refer to it as teriyaki though, tastes far different! 
I was roaming along in a thrift store one day last summer, looking for interesting cookbooks and read the following title, "Make Your Own Groceries".  Looked interesting, was a whopping 25 cents so I grabbed it.  Once I got home I did some research and boy was that an eye popping experience.  Apparently this book goes for $33 just for the paperback version, I've found prices up to $116 for the hardback version which is what I have.  Published in 1979, ISBN 0672526719.  After reading through it, I like it, it has a lot of cool ideas for sauces, mixes, etc.  If you can lay your hands on a copy it would be great for reference!

On page 78 there is a recipe for teriyaki sauce, I decided to try it, since the book is hard to find and out of print I'm tentatively posting the recipe:

2/3 cup water
2/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dark rum
3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp freshly grated ginger, or 1/4 tsp dried


Combine all ingredients in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid.  Let stand at room temp for 2 to 3 weeks.  Pour into a clean bottle, seal well and store at room temp.

Now, we did this and have to note that the 2 to 3 weeks is for a light fermentation.  It tasted great, though watered down a bit.  Was a great addition to steamed rice and fried rice.  But... well we wanted more flavor and larger volume so we started tweaking this a bit and after a year have finally settled on a recipe we like enough to keep a jar on hand all the time.  In fact we save our soy sauce bottles for holding this!

1 10 oz or so bottle of your favorite soy sauce (ours is San J low sodium tamari)
1/2 of a 750 ml bottle sake, we use Gekkeikan, sometimes we use 3/4 of the bottle if we are using regular sodium soy sauce
1 large head of garlic, peeled
1 hand of ginger, about the size of your hand
1 cup Allegro marinade (if you can find it, otherwise a 1/2 cup of worcestershire should be fine)
1/4 cup sugar

Hack up the ginger into slices, chunks whatever.  Do the same with the garlic.  Combine everything into a decent sized jar with at least 2 inches room at the top and a tight fitting lid.  Make sure the sugar has completely dissolved into the liquids.  Let sit for at least a month in a cool dark spot.
Strain out the garlic and ginger, though you do want to squeeze out the remaining liquid and add to the rest, pour into bottles and toss in the fridge.
Here's what we have left until I can get into town and buy another bottle of sake: