In Ukrainian cuisine, there are countless different drinks that will easily quench your thirst and fill your body with energy and vigor. These include compotes, fruit juices, kvass, beer, various meads and many others. Although retail chains and numerous beverage manufacturers offer products for every taste, a drink prepared with your own hands will be more useful and richer in taste. Therefore, today we offer a selection of recipes for the most interesting traditional fermented drinks of Ukrainian cuisine. Let's hope that everyone will find a drink to their liking, and some of the proposed drinks can be prepared even for the winter holidays. So we invite you to try them!
Kvass
Let's start our story about the best recipes, of course, with Ukrainian kvass. Kvass quenches thirst well, refreshes and fills the body with useful substances. This drink is prepared and consumed in almost every corner of our country. The basis for making kvass can be rye bread, fruits, berries or beets, malt, or just yeast.
Brewery kvass
Kvass prepared according to this recipe has a sweetish flavor with light fruity-citrus notes.
For preparation you will need the following ingredients:
- 12 liters of water
- unpasteurized beer – 1.5 liters,
- sugar – 600 grams,
- raisins -200-250 grams,
- juice of one lemon
- zest of ½ lemon
- and yeast (live) – 25 grams.
Preparing kvass:
In a container, it is most convenient to use a large saucepan, mix the beer with 12 liters of boiling water. Dissolve sugar in this mixture and add lemon juice, zest and raisins. Cover the container with the kvass preparation with a thick and thick cloth and leave to infuse for 4 hours. Then add yeast to the cooled sourdough, mix well and put in a warm place. When the kvass begins to ferment, it must be well strained through a fine sieve or several layers of gauze, poured into glass bottles, adding 2-4 raisins to each, corked. It is better to secure the corks on the bottles with twine, leave until foam appears in the bottles, after which the bottles must be put in a cold place for a day. In 24 hours, the kvass is completely ready for use.
Haidamatsky kvass
Kvass according to this recipe takes a little longer to prepare than the previous one, but its taste is simply unbeatable with a richer lemon flavor.
Ingredients:
- water -6 liters,
- sugar – 500-600 grams,
- lemon – 4 medium-sized pieces,
- unpasteurized beer - 250 ml,
- yeast 30 grams.
To prepare kvass, dissolve sugar in boiling water and add lemons cut into four parts (when cutting lemons, it is necessary to remove the stones). Leave the solution to cool slightly. Add the prepared beer and yeast dissolved in a small amount of water to the slightly warm sweet solution. Stir well, filter and bottle. Place the corked bottles with kvass in a cold place for three days.
You can taste Haidamatskiy kvass!
Hutsul kvass
Kvass according to this recipe is perhaps the longest in terms of preparation technology, but its spicy and rich fruity taste will exceed all expectations. Therefore, for its preparation, you need to be patient and prepare the following ingredients:
- 5 liters of water,
- 5 kg of apples (half of the amount should be sweet and half sour),
- rowan berries 0.5 kg,
- sugar - 1.5 kg,
- ground pepper - to taste.
In a wooden barrel (cooking in such a vessel best reveals the taste of this drink and helps to preserve the maximum amount of nutrients), put washed apples and rowan berries, add sugar and season with ground pepper to taste. Pour water over the fruit. Place the barrel in a cold place for 2-2.5 months. We recommend straining the finished kvass before serving.
Cranberry kvass
Bright, tasty and healthy cranberry kvass will delight both true gourmets and lovers of traditional flavors.
Ingredients:
- water – 5 liters,
- cranberries – 1 kg,
- sugar – 1 kg,
- yeast 10 grams,
- raisins – a small handful.
To prepare cranberry kvass, the berries are mashed, poured with water and boiled. The boiled berries are strained, sugar is added and the broth is brought to a boil again. The boiled solution is left for a while to ferment. Add dissolved yeast to the slightly warm cranberry broth and leave the mixture for a day at room temperature. After the kvass begins to ferment, it is strained. It is bottled, adding a few raisins to each, and corked. The bottled bottles are moved to a cold place. In 2-3 days you can enjoy incredibly delicious berry kvass.
Zaporozhye kvass
The basis for the preparation of this type of kvass is rye crackers. Kvass based on rye crackers is very common not only in Ukraine, but also among other Slavic peoples.
For cooking you will need:
- water – 25 liters,
- rye crackers – 3.5 kg,
- 2/3 cup diluted yeast,
- sugar - 750 grams,
- lemon – 1 pc.,
- raisins – a small handful.
The best container for making such kvass is a barrel, or as it is also called a wooden barrel. So, in the prepared container, we steam rye crackers with boiling water and leave to infuse for about 8-9 hours. After that, we filter the solution and pour it into a clean container. In the strained curd (the curd is called the bread sourdough that we got), we add yeast, sugar and sliced lemon and leave for another 8-9 hours. Then we filter the kvass again and pour it into bottles, adding 1-3 raisins to each. We leave the well-corked bottles with kvass in a warm room for 10 hours, as soon as the kvass in the bottles begins to ferment and foam begins to form, the bottles must be moved to a cold place and left for another half a day. Serve the finished kvass chilled.
Cossack kvass
We suggest you try another variation of bread kvass.
Ingredients of Cossack kvass:
- water – 6 liters,
- crackers -200 grams,
- sugar -300 grams,
- yeast – 15 grams,
- flour 1 tablespoon,
- lemon – 1 pc.
The first step in preparing this kvass is to steam the crackers with boiling water and leave to infuse for 8 hours. Then, in a separate container, dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of bread infusion, add flour to the dissolved yeast, mix thoroughly and let it rise as when preparing the dough for the dough. While our leaven is coming up, strain the bread infusion through a fine sieve or several layers of cheesecloth. Dissolve sugar in the strained bread base and add yeast, mix everything thoroughly and leave for 12 hours.
Strain the kvass again and pour it into bottles, adding a slice of lemon to each. Cork the bottles well and leave them for a few hours at room temperature. Then move the bottles to a cool place and let them infuse for a few more hours and you can enjoy!
Raspberry kvass
An incredible berry drink that tastes more like fruit cider than kvass. This kvass can be made in the summer and stored for a long time. Isn't it a great opportunity to bring the taste of summer coolness to the winter table and treat your guests to an unusual drink?
So, for cooking you will need:
- water - 27 liters,
- rye malt – 800 grams,
- rye crackers – 200 UAH,
- raspberry berries - 2 kg,
- sugar – 1 kg,
- yeast – 1 cup diluted or 100 grams dry.
In a barrel, pour boiled water over malt, berries, crackers, add sugar and yeast, mix everything and leave in a warm place for a week. Then, when the kvass has fermented, it is taken out to a cool place, preferably in a cellar for another 2 days. Then the liquid is carefully drained so as not to disturb the pulp. Add 3 liters of boiled and cooled water to the berry-bread pulp, mix thoroughly and filter. Combine both liquids in a large saucepan and put on the stove, cook over moderate heat for about 15 minutes. While the kvass is boiling, it is necessary to keep an eye on it and collect the foam from the surface. The boiled kvass is filtered again, cooled and poured into strong glass bottles, preferably dark in color. Each bottle is well corked, tied with twine and tarred. Raspberry kvass should be stored in a cold place.
Bread kvass
This is perhaps the most common variation of making bread kvass. The highlight of this recipe is the light, cool mint flavor of the drink.
So the ingredients needed are:
- sour black bread 2 kg,
- water - 12 liters,
- yeast – 50 grams,
- wheat flour – 2 tablespoons,
- sugar – 700 grams,
- mint – 20 grams, you can use both dried and fresh, but kvass with the addition of fresh mint turns out to be more saturated in taste.
First, cut the black bread into small pieces and dry in the oven or stove until golden brown. Transfer the resulting breadcrumbs to a tub and pour boiling water over them, let them brew for about 12 hours. Separately, dissolve the yeast in a small amount of the brewed bread base and add the flour to them, mix thoroughly so that there are no lumps. Put the yeast starter in a warm place so that it ferments and begins to rise. While the starter "rises". Brew the mint syrup, for this, put the mint in a container with water and boil well for 5 minutes. Then pour sugar into the mint broth, stir well and bring to a boil again.
Once the yeast has risen, add it to the main mass of the rusk infusion, mix, and add mint syrup to it. Mix everything well, cover with a cloth napkin and put in a warm place until a thick foam appears on the surface of the drink. The foam that forms must be carefully removed, otherwise the kvass will ferment very intensively in the bottles. Then carefully strain the kvass through a sieve and several layers of gauze or cloth and pour into bottles. Important!!! You should not fill the bottles "to the very top", there should be an air gap between the cork and the surface of the kvass.
Put the poured kvass in a cold place for 12-15 hours. The kvass is ready to quench your thirst and treat your loved ones.
Lemon kvass
Ingredients:
- water – 15 liters,
- lemons – 6 pieces,
- sugar – 1.5 kg,
- raisins – 200 grams,
- yeast - 100 grams.
Add sugar, lemons cut into 4-6 pieces with the seeds removed, raisins to the boiling water, mix everything and leave to cool. Add yeast to the cooled lemon infusion, stir well and leave for 12 hours. Strain the infused kvass, let it stand for a while and bottle it. Take the corked bottles with kvass to a cool place and leave for 3-4 days. And then enjoy!
Honey
Honey has a special relationship in Ukrainian cuisine, it is a dessert, a seasoning for dishes, and a basis for baking and drinks. This relationship to the product is not surprising, because in addition to being extremely tasty, it is also useful and widely used in folk medicine. Many drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, are prepared with honey.
Kiev honey
To make honey you will need:
- honey – 3 kg,
- water - about 10-12 liters,
- hops – 80 grams.
To prepare the drink, honey must be dissolved in 6 liters of water and boiled over moderate heat for 3 hours from the moment of boiling. Then we immerse the hops in the container with honey (we put the hops in advance in a linen bag together with a pebble and tie it; the cloth should be thin so that the hops give all the necessary substances to the broth, without enticing the drink). We boil the honey with hops for about another hour. Then we need to add water to the level that was at the beginning of the preparation and bring it to a boil again. We remove the honey from the stove, cover with a linen towel and let it cool a little. We strain the still warm drink into a large container (the size of the container should be such that 1/5 of its volume remains unfilled with honey). We put the strained honey in a warm room for fermentation for 3 weeks (the optimal temperature for honey fermentation is from 20 to 24 ˚С). After three weeks, check how the fermentation process is going, if the drink has already fermented, add tea leaves to it, at the rate of 1 teaspoon per 1 liter of the finished drink. Strain the honey and pour into prepared bottles, it is better to cork the bottles with corks. Store the corked bottles in a cool, dark place for about 6-7 months. The longer the drink stands, the richer and better its taste will be.
Homemade honey
Ingredients:
- water – 6 liters,
- honey - 4 kg,
- hops – 50 grams.
We dilute the honey with water and bring it to a boil several times. We add hops to the boiled honey and put the container with the drink in a cool place so that the honey ferments well. Then the drink is filtered, bottled and corked. Store the drink in a cool place.
Mezhyhirsky honey
Ingredients:
- water - 6 liters,
- honey – 1.5 kg,
- 1 egg white,
- 0.5 grams each of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves,
- brewer's yeast - 1 tablespoon.
To prepare Mezhyhirsky honey, honey and egg white are diluted in water and boiled over moderate heat for an hour and a half, spices are added to the drink 20-30 minutes before the end of cooking. When the honey has boiled for a quarter, becomes transparent, and the spices float to the surface, remove it from the heat and let it cool. Strain the cooled drink into a barrel (wooden tub), add fresh brewer's yeast to it, then cover with a thick cloth and leave to ferment in a warm place. When the drink has fermented, the tub is tightly corked and taken to a cold place for 7-8 months. The honey aged in the barrel is bottled and stored in a cool place.
Old World honey
Drink ingredients:
- honey - 8 kg,
- 18 liters of water,
- bun,
- brewer's yeast,
- hops – 1 teaspoon,
- cardamom 4 grams,
- cloves - 1.5 grams.
Honey is dissolved in water and boiled over low heat until its volume is reduced by 2/3 and becomes 9 liters. Then the boiled honey is removed from the heat and left to cool. In the meantime, it is necessary to cut the crust from the roll and soak it in brewer's yeast. Put the soaked roll into the boiled and cooled honey and add hops. Leave the drink to ferment. If the fermentation process is not going well, you can add 1 more spoonful of brewer's yeast. An hour after the start of the fermentation process, remove the roll from the honey, and strain the liquid itself into a strong tub, in which a linen bag with spices was previously placed. The filled barrel is tightly corked and placed in a cold place for 120 days. Next, the honey is bottled, corked, tarred, and left in a dark, cool place to mature for 2-3 months.
Musylets
A delicious drink based on honey and berries.
For preparation you need:
- honey -1 kg,
- water – 5 liters,
- berries from the liqueur.
Preparing musilets is quite simple: honey is dissolved in water and boiled, then filtered and the warm liquid is poured over the berries. Let it brew for 2 weeks. Then you can serve it and treat your guests!
Beer
In addition to kvass, various meads and tinctures, Ukrainians also love beer. Beer has been brewed since ancient times and there are countless variations of recipes for this slightly intoxicating and refreshing drink. Properly brewed beer, consumed in acceptable quantities, is a source of essential vitamins that are rarely found in other foods. So we offer several old recipes for Ukrainian beer that are easy to prepare at home.
Baturyn beer
For cooking you will need:
- water
- juniper berries -2.5 kg,
- rye malt - 8 kg,
- about 100 grams of dried apples or pears, it would be best to use dried wild pears.
First, pour water over the malt and bring to a boil, cook for 5 minutes. Then remove from heat and add dried fruits and ripe juniper berries, mix everything well and pour into a bucket. Add more water, enough to fill the barrel to half its volume. "Clog", that is, cork, the barrel and leave for a day. Then add a little water every day until the barrel is completely full. Then remove the cork and cover the hole with gauze, the drink will make a lot of noise. As soon as the beer stops making noise, you can take a sample.
Ready-made Baturyn beer can be stored in glass bottles in a cool place.
Zaporozhye beer
Ingredients:
- water -10 liters,
- hops – 100 grams,
- sugar 3 cups,
- flour 1-2 tablespoons,
- dark molasses – 2 cups,
- 50 grams of yeast.
To make Zaporozhye beer, hops must be ground with sugar and flour. Then this ground mixture is poured with boiling water and allowed to infuse for 3-3.5 hours. The still warm infused hops are filtered into a barrel, yeast and molasses diluted with warm infusion are added there. Everything is mixed and left to ferment. When the beer has fermented, it is bottled and corked. Such beer must be stored in a cold place, and traditionally served chilled.
Mosnohirske beer
Required ingredients:
- water -19 liters,
- rye malt 2.5 kg,
- dry hops – a large handful,
- sugar or honey 600 grams,
- yeast diluted in water – 100 grams.
Pour hops, rye malt, sugar or honey with 4 liters of water and boil over moderate heat for 30-35 minutes. Cool the finished broth and add yeast to it, mix everything thoroughly. Pour the resulting mixture into a barrel and add another 15 liters of water. Cover with a warm cloth and leave the beer to ferment for 4 days. The finished beer can be given a beautiful and familiar brownish-amber hue with the help of burnt sugar. Pour the beer into bottles, cork and store in a cold place.
Other fermented drinks of Ukrainian cuisine
Traditional mash (mash)
Braga (mash) tastes like something in between beer and kvass, is prepared quite simply and can be an interesting "highlight" on a vacation with friends, but it is worth remembering that this drink does not contain a high alcohol content, so only millet malt and water are needed for preparation.
The prepared malt must be heavily scalded with boiling water and allowed to infuse for about 8-9 hours, then the resulting mixture must be diluted with cold water, strained well through a sieve or several layers of gauze and placed in a cold place, preferably in a refrigerator or cold cellar, to infuse for another day. The infused mash can be consumed.
Spikelet
Ingredients:
- water – 8 liters,
- blackcurrant leaves – 1 kg,
- lemon – 2 pcs.,
- sugar – 500 grams,
- yeast – 25 grams,
- raisins 5-10 grams.
To prepare the fizz, the blackcurrant leaves are carefully sorted and washed. Then the leaves are scalded with boiling water. Sugar and sliced lemons without seeds are added to the scalded leaves in the water. Everything is mixed, covered with a linen napkin and left to cool to the temperature of "steamed" milk. Yeast is added to the slightly warm fizz, mixed and left in a warm place until bubbles begin to appear on the surface. Then the drink is filtered, poured and corked into bottles, having previously put 1-2 raisins in each. The bottles with fizz are cooled.
The drink is ready to drink. Enjoy!
Apple tree
For preparation you need:
- barrel with a volume of 54 liters,
- dried apples and pears – 10 kg each,
- raisins 50 grams,
- water.
Place apples and pears in a barrel and pour cold boiled water over them. Leave the soaked fruit in a warm place for 3 days. Then move the future drink to a cool place and leave it until it ferments. The barrel should be covered during preparation, but not corked. When the cider ferments, the barrel is corked and left in a cool place for another 3-4 days. Then the drink is bottled, a few raisins are added, and corked. The bottles are tarred and buried in sand for 5 days. It can be expensive!
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