Prepare the bread: slice it and dry in the oven. Put them in a big saucepan, pour in boiling water and leave it for 12 hours. Brew the mint and the currant leaves (separately) with boiling water and let it infuse for 5 hours. Drain the bread infusion into another saucepan, add the strained mint and currant infusions, the yeast and sugar boiled in 0,5 liter of water. Mix it all and leave to ferment for 4 hours. Remove the foam, sift the kvass and pour it into bottles. Add a few raisins into each bottle and put them in a cool place (a fridge) for 2 days.

This old Russian drink is still very popular. The palatable and fragrant bread kvass is a good tonic due to its extraneous components and fermentation products. Kvass is good for digestion: its lactic acid bacteria normalize the intestine activity. The drink is good at allaying thirst and its feed value is explicable with its highly assimilable proteins, vitamins, organic acids and minerals. Kvass is used both as a dessert drink and as a basis for the traditional Russian okroshka. From days of old Rus knew the secrets of making a great many sorts of kvass: sour, sweet, mint, fragrant, okroshka kvasses, etc.

Honey Kissel

Kisel is a fruity, smooth and creamy beverage or dessert that is served cold in bowls or, if diluted with milk, served as a delicious drink.

1/4 lemon juice
300 g honey
1/3 glass sugar
3 tbsp potato starch
6,5 glasses of water

Dissolve 150 g of honey in hot water, add sugar and bring the mixture to the boil.

Dissolve the potato starch in cold boiled water and pour it into the boiling syrup, stirring all the time. Put the gas off and pour in the rest of the honey and the lemon juice. Thoroughly mix the kissel and let it cool.

Drinking Honey

1,5 kg white honey
8 liters water
1/2 tsp gelatin
2 tbsp hop
1-2 cardamom seeds

Put the honey into enamel bucket, pour in 8 liters of boiling water and leave till the next day. Next day boil the mixture for 1 hour. Then add the hop and boil for 4-5 times more with short breaks. When the honey cools to room temperature, pour it into a barrel, add cardamom and gelatin dissolved in water and cork it tightly.

After 15-20 days of fermenting pour the honey into bottles, cork them tightly, put into a cold cellar and whelm with sand.

In three months the honey will be ready.

Enjoy!

Sbiten

Sbiten used to be one of the most popular traditional Russian hot beverages cooked with honey and spices. Sbiten (or "perevar" as it was then called) appeared in Russia about 1000 years ago. There were two sorts of sbiten: with or without wine. Sbiten was widely sold right on the streets. Street vendors usually sold alcohol free sbiten, which proves that Russians did not have heavy drinking habits at the time. Till the end of the 19th century along with kvas sbiten substituted coffee and tea in Russia. It was usually cooked in big pots that remind greatly samovars. It is considered that samovar (traditional Russian pot used for making tea) owes its appearance to sbiten.

Method:

Dissolve honey in boiling water, add cloves, cinnamon, red bilberries or cranberry juice. Filter hot beverage and serve it hot. Instead of water red wine is added, as well.

Ingredients:

honey-50, water-900, cinnamon-0,3, cloves-0,2, juice-100.

Moscow Sbiten

200 g honey
150 g treacle
1 g canella
2 g mixture of cloves, hop, nutmeg and bayberry
1 liter water

Boil the honey and treacle with water, add the spices and boil for 5 min. Then leave for 30 min and sift. The drink is ready!

Sbiten with Wine

1 liter red dry wine
150 g honey
0,1 g canella
0,1 g nutmeg
0,1 g cloves

Boil wine with honey, add the spices and leave in a warm place for 30 min to infuse. Then sift the drink and serve while hot. Sbiten can be served with gingerbreads, pies and cakes. A cup of hot sbiten is irreplaceable on cold winter days after skiing or fishing.

Cranberry mors (berry drink)

75 g honey
125 g cranberry
800 g water

Pick out ripe berries, wash them, crush in enamel or glass ware, squeeze juice through gauze and cool it. Put the rest in hot water, boil for 5-10 min and strain the liquid. Mix the result with the squeezed juice, add honey, mix and cool it.