A ginger and turmeric shot is a concentrated press of raw ginger, turmeric root and citrus, taken in one 60 ml hit. At Aura's wellness bars in Lisbon it's the SUNNY SHOT — ginger, lemon, orange and turmeric, cold-pressed in-house for €4. It won't cure a cold or "boost" your immune system on its own, but each ingredient does something specific and reasonably well-studied. Here is what's actually in the bottle, and what each part does.
What's actually in a ginger and turmeric shot?
Three things do the work: ginger, turmeric and citrus. Everything else is water and a squeeze of brightness. Our SUNNY SHOT keeps it to four ingredients on purpose — ginger, lemon, orange and turmeric — pressed rather than blended, so it's the juice and the aromatic oils without the fibre or filler. The dose matters: a shot is small and concentrated, which is the point, but it also means the numbers below are modest next to a clinical supplement.
What does gingerol actually do?
Gingerolis the pungent compound that gives fresh ginger its heat, and it carries the strongest evidence of anything in the bottle. The clearest, most consistent finding is on nausea and digestive comfort. A systematic review and meta-analysis of twelve randomised trials in 1,278 pregnant women found that ginger significantly improved nausea compared with placebo (Viljoen et al., Nutrition Journal, 2014 · DOI: 10.1186/1475-2891-13-20). Similar trials support ginger for motion sickness and for post-operative and chemotherapy-related nausea. It also stimulates gastric emptying and the flow of saliva and bile, which is the mechanism behind that settled-stomach feeling. This is the one claim we make without a caveat: for nausea and digestion, ginger works.
Is turmeric's curcumin worth it in a shot?
Curcumin, the yellow pigment in turmeric, is genuinely anti-inflammatory in the lab and in a number of clinical trials — but it comes with an honest catch: on its own, it's poorly absorbed. Swallowed alone, most curcumin passes straight through you. The best-known fix is black pepper: piperine slows the liver from clearing curcumin, and a landmark study found that 20 mg of piperine raised curcumin bioavailability in humans by 2000% (Shoba et al., Planta Medica, 1998 · DOI: 10.1055/s-2006-957450). Fat helps too, since curcumin is fat-soluble. A citrus shot has neither much pepper nor much fat, so treat the turmeric here as a small, genuine contribution — not a therapeutic dose. Pairing it with ginger, as we do, is the sensible move: the two are studied together far more often than turmeric alone.
Does the vitamin C really "boost immunity"?
This is where honesty matters most. "Immunity boosting" is marketing shorthand; the accurate phrase is supporting normal immune function. The lemon and orange in a SUNNY SHOT deliver real vitamin C, which the body needs for immune cells to work as they should. What vitamin C does not do is stop you catching a cold. The largest review of the evidence — 29 trials and over 11,000 people — found that regular vitamin C did not reduce how often people in the general population caught colds, though it modestly shortened how long colds lasted (Hemilä & Chalker, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2013 · DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4). So: useful for keeping a normal system topped up, not a force field.
When does a ginger-turmeric shot actually make sense?
A shot is a small, repeatable habit, not medicine, and it fits a few moments well. Travel and post-flight:ginger's anti-nausea evidence is real, so it earns its place before a bumpy drive or after a long-haul landing. Season change: when the weather turns and you want to keep your vitamin C consistent, a daily shot is an easy way to do it. A heavy or unfamiliar meal:ginger's effect on digestion is the most reliable thing it does. What a shot won't do is cure a cold you already have, undo a poor diet, or "detox" anything — your liver and kidneys handle that. Think of it as a well-made small habit that stacks with sleep, food and movement.
Where to get a ginger and turmeric shot in Lisbon
Our SUNNY SHOT is pressed fresh in-house and pours at every Aura location in Lisbon — the Campo de Ourique flagship, inside MVMT Studio in Santos, and inside Fine Club in Campolide — for €4. You'll also find it on the cold-pressed juices and shots menu, and it closes out every day of our juice cleanse, delivered across Lisbon in returnable glass. If you want to go deeper on what ginger, turmeric and each compound do, our ingredient library breaks them down one by one.
Aura is a wellness bar in Lisbon. Every claim above cites the research it comes from — and where the evidence stops, so do we.