How to make sbiten. Ancient hot drink sbiten - recipes

There are many traditional recipes sbitnya - with spices and herbal infusions, with the addition of cherry or currant leaves and even with this unusual ingredient like hell. However, with all the variety of cooking methods, the constant ingredients will be honey and water.

First you need to mix mint and chamomile in a large bowl.

These two herbs are not only useful, but will also remind you of summer with their aromas.

To boil water.

It is better to take spring or spring water for sbiten; it is softer and will give the drink a special taste. Instead of herbs, you can take a mixture of your favorite spices: for example, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger - in any combinations and proportions. This whipping will be an excellent cure for colds.

Pour boiling water over the herbs. Mix. Leave to infuse for one hour.

Strain the resulting broth through a sieve or cheesecloth.

Warm it up a little. Add honey. Stir well until the honey is completely dissolved.

There is no need to heat the water too much, otherwise the honey will lose all its beneficial features and just turn into a sweet mass.

Pour the sbiten into cups and serve.

This drink was once incredibly popular. It was sold on the streets, at all kinds of fairs and bazaars, and poured in taverns. And such popularity is quite understandable. in winter hot sbiten It will warm you up and protect you from illness, and in the summer, a cold one will be an excellent thirst-quenching drink in the bathhouse. Sbiten will give you strength, color your cheeks with a blush, warm and invigorate you no worse than overseas coffee or tea. And there are undoubtedly more benefits in it.

Everyone knows medicinal properties honey And in winter, when colds come from all sides, a jar of aromatic sweet honey becomes an invariable companion to the usual tea drinking. In general, honey has long been one of the most valuable delicacies and the most common dessert among the Slavs. Famous hot drink, which was prepared even before the appearance of tea in our area, was made on the basis of honey. This drink is called sbiten.

Sbiten is a hot mixture of honey, water, spices, and lemon. Such nectar is a treasure trove useful elements and an aromatherapy session in one vat. Try to cook it too honey sbiten, because preparing it at home is very simple and will take you about 15 minutes.

The preparation process involves boiling water with honey along with spices, which makes the drink very spicy.

Ingredients (for 2 servings of drink)

2 glasses of water
3-4 tbsp. spoons of honey
0.5 lemon
0.5 tsp cinnamon
0.5 teaspoon ground ginger
6 black peppercorns
3 buds of cloves
3 boxes of cardamom
1 star anise

How to cook sbiten

Pour water into a small saucepan and add honey. Place the pan on low heat.

Prepare all the spices. In fact, you can feel free to choose your own spice combinations. The main thing is that you like the result. By the way, if you feel that you are starting to get sick, add a little to the sbiten fresh ginger- and you will have a real anti-cold remedy.

Cut half a lemon into slices.

When the honey dissolves in the water and the mixture boils, add spices and sliced lemon.

Keep the sbiten on low heat for 10 minutes. When the drink is ready, strain it through a sieve and pour into cups or glasses.

Serve the sbiten with a slice of lemon and honey in a separate bowl for those who like sweeter drinks.

Mulled wine in Russian, vzvar, perevar - this is the name of this wonderful drink, the roots of which go back ten centuries. Sbiten, and it is by this name that it is known now, was the most common drink in Rus'.

IN composition of sbitnya included honey or sugar, a decoction of medicinal herbs with the addition of various spices. Therefore, it is not surprising that this drink warmed the body in the cold, gave the body strength and protected against diseases.

Name“Sbiten” probably comes from the word “to knock down,” which refers to the method of preparing the drink. Separately, a decoction was made from medicinal herbs with spices, and then mixed it with honey.

They drank sbiten both hot and cold. It can be alcoholic or non-alcoholic.

Read also:

How to make sbiten?

After the October Revolution, the mass use of sbiten came to an end, but now it is gaining popularity again. How to prepare this ancient, but still healthy and tasty drink at home?

Making sbiten at home

Recipe 1

Compound:

Water – 500 ml
Honey – 100-140 grams
Pouring – 1 glass
Spices: cloves, pepper, ginger
Herbs: mint, St. John's wort, thyme, linden flowers

Heat water, put honey in it, cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes. Add the liqueur and boil for 5 minutes, then add herbs and spices. Cook for another 10 minutes. Remove from heat, cover with a lid, leave for 20-30 minutes. Strain.

Recipe 2

To prepare the drink you will need:

Water – 750 ml
Honey – 250 grams
Medicinal herbs (St. John's wort, mint, sage, thyme) – 40 grams
Spices (cinnamon, ginger root, cloves) – 5 grams

Stir honey in boiling water until it dissolves. Leave to brew at a temperature of 18-25 degrees for a day. Pour into clay pot and cook over low heat for about 2 hours. Add herbs and spices 15-20 minutes before the end of cooking.

Recipe 3

Ingredients:

Water - 2.5 l
Honey – 250 grams
Strawberry juice – 250 ml
Mint herb – 1 tablespoon
St. John's wort herb – 0.5 teaspoon
Sage herb – 1 teaspoon

Boil water, pour in strawberry juice and bring to a boil again. Add honey, mint, St. John's wort and sage. Cook for 1 hour. Remove foam from time to time.

Recipe 4

Compound:

Water – 1l
Sugar – 100 grams
Honey – 200 grams
Cinnamon – 0.6 grams
Hops – 6 grams
Dried mint – 0.4 grams
Cloves – 0.4 grams

Boil water add honey and sugar, stir. Add herbs and spices and cook for 20-30 minutes. Strain and serve hot.

Recipe 5

Would need:

White molasses – 50 grams
Honey – 50 grams
Water – 250 ml
Beer – 250 ml
Dried mint – 0.5 teaspoon

Mix water and beer and bring to a boil. Add mint and molasses, simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add honey and simmer for a few more minutes. Let it brew for 1 hour. When cool, refrigerate for a week. Sbiten is ready.

Recipe 6

Ingredients:

Water – 1.5 l
Honey – 150 grams
Sugar – 100 grams
St. John's wort herb – 2 teaspoons
Ground cloves – 1.5 teaspoon
Black peppercorns – 5 pcs.
Ground ginger – 0.5 teaspoon
Ground cinnamon – 1 teaspoon
Dried mint – 1.5 teaspoon
Dried thyme – 0.5 teaspoon
Cardamom – 0.5 teaspoon
Lemon – 1 pc.

Take 2 glasses of water, add honey, dissolve it and boil. Remove foam from time to time. Add sugar and cook until it reaches a homogeneous consistency.

Bring the rest of the water to a boil in a saucepan, add herbs and spices, cover and cook for 20-30 minutes. Leave for 10-15 minutes, strain, mix with honey mixture. Serve hot with sliced lemon.

Recipe 7

Would need:

Honey – 75 grams
Dry red wine – 0.5 l
Cloves – 1-2 pcs.
Ground cinnamon - to taste
Nutmeg - to taste

Pour the wine into a pan, heat to 70-80 degrees. Add honey and spices, heat, but do not boil. Leave for 40 minutes, then strain. Serve hot.

So, sbiten is an ancient Russian drink, which was used not only as a sweet treat, but also in medicinal, for preventive purposes. Thanks to its restorative qualities, sbiten is useful to take when there is severe frost or a cold, as well as in winter to strengthen the immune system.

There are a lot of recipes for making sbiten, so everyone will find one that suits them personally. In summer, the drink can be safely cooled and used as a wonderful thirst quencher.

Sbiten is an extraordinary drink. And even if you haven’t had a chance to taste it yet, you’ve probably heard the name. True, most of our contemporaries still have a rather vague idea about this drink, and most often do not know how to prepare sbiten with their own hands at home. But the recipe for sbiten was invented in Rus'. And for several centuries it was the most popular drink made from honey.

Among the huge variety of honey drinks that Rus' has been famous for since time immemorial, it is easy to get confused. After all, honey is the most popular product in those times. He was certainly present in any home, regardless of status and social status. But sbiten is an original Russian drink in the form of a hot decoction of fiery, pungent spices, aromatic herbs and roots sweetened with honey - cannot be confused with other honeys or with.

Unlike mead, it cooks quickly. And his numerous recipes with the ability to combine and combine in different proportions are quite available ingredients allow you to prepare real, healthy and tasty sbiten at home with your own hands.

Information about it can be found already in the chronicles of the 12th century, in which sbiten is mentioned as a warming drink, initially called perevar. Somewhat later, it began to be called vzvar, var, and after some time it received the name we now know - sbiten.

As follows from primary sources, they drank this soft drink several times a day, hot, like tea. In fact, sbiten fully performed the functions of the now popular tea and coffee, which gradually (after the 1917 revolution completely) replaced sbiten, like other honey drinks.

By the way, according to historians, such an obligatory attribute of the tea ceremony in the Russian state as the famous samovar also appeared during the popularity of sbiten. It was, of course, not an exact copy of the sbitennik, but its design was based on the same principle with a heating element and pipe.

But healthy and tasty was not completely forgotten. Nowadays, in the wake of increased interest in useful and healthy eating remembered about healing properties honey drink, which in many respects are superior to the same tea or coffee. And having remembered, they began to make attempts to find old recipes and revive the Russian tradition of eating sbiten.

Read also: What's happened Old Russian sbiten and how was it prepared in Rus'?

How was the ancient hot drink prepared in Rus'?

To cook sbiten, they took honey, spices and water. The quantity and composition of ingredients constantly changed (it depended on the recipe). The only constant and constant product was honey. And the most popular additives in Rus' were St. John’s wort, mint, sage, ginger, Bell pepper, Bay leaf, cinnamon and coriander.

Basically, sbiten was prepared in several ways: simple and custard.

At in a simple way Honey was boiled separately: after mixing it in water, it was brought to a boil. In another vessel a hot decoction of spices and herbs was prepared. And then everything was whisked (mixed) together. Spices and spices that were brought from distant countries, especially at first, were replaced with domestic spicy plants such as angelica, calamus, elecampane, lemon balm and thyme.

There is also a simplified version of this method: all the ingredients were mixed at once, boiled for 15-20 minutes and infused.

At brewed method The fermentation process occurs, and according to the recipe, in addition to the main ingredients, hop cones are added (the result is a hop whip with a special characteristic taste) and yeast.

Traditional sbiten is still a non-alcoholic drink. But when cooking at home, to diversify the taste, it was allowed to add berry and fruit juices, sweet syrup, vodka or dry red wine.

Many recipes traditionally call for boiling honey. To preserve beneficial properties honey product You can proceed as follows: put it in a prepared decoction with herbs and spices, cooled to 40°C.

Recipes for making sbiten at home

Having become familiar with the basic cooking techniques, if you have an unbearable desire to cook sbiten at home, you can safely get down to business. This is almost the same as, for example, making mulled wine (a very popular drink today). The technology for their preparation is very similar. The only difference: mulled wine is always an alcoholic drink.

Read also: Cranberry sbiten: recipe and beneficial properties of the drink

At home, you can brew a hop-based version for yourself and your loved ones, and make a delicious non-alcoholic drink for children, without having any special knowledge of winemaking or moonshine. All ingredients are available. All you have to do is follow the recipe. Although this is not necessary. Experiments and creativity welcome.

Classic sbiten recipe

Honey – 500 g
Mix of spices (cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom) – 10 g
Water – 1.5 l
Herbs (mint, St. John's wort, sage, oregano) – 80 g

Boil honey in a liter of water so that some of the liquid evaporates. Separately, boil the spices and herbs in the remaining liquid for 15 minutes and let it brew a little. Combine the liquid from two containers and heat slightly.

Slavic sbiten

Water – 1 l
Cinnamon – 1 tsp.
Honey – 50 g
Collection of herbs (mint, lemon balm, oregano) - a sprig of each
Hops – 3 g

Add spices and honey to boiling water. Cook for 15 minutes. We insist for half an hour. We drink it hot.

Sbiten festive

This version of the sweeter and spicy drink was drunk on major holidays.

Water – 1.5 l
Yeast – 50 g
Honey – 500 g
Cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, pepper

Boil the honey, stirring it in water. Boil again with spices. Add yeast to the cooled drink. Pouring into bottles, keep warm for 12-14 hours. And then put it in the cold to ripen for 14-21 days. IN ready drink you can add before use cranberry juice(500 ml). Warm before use.

Fruit sbiten for children

Water – 7.5 l
Honey – 2 kg
Any juice, you can use a mixture of juices (strawberry, raspberry, currant) – 1 l

For this recipe, all ingredients are boiled low heat, removing the foam, about two hours. After cooling and straining the drink, it is consumed immediately.

Sbiten is an aromatic and warming ancient Russian drink. Nowadays it is cooked less and less, but several centuries ago sbiten was often used to warm up on cold days. Almost every family knew how to prepare it, and many even had their own secret to preparing the drink. Today, sbiten recipes are available to any housewife.

Sbiten: what is it?

Sbiten (or, as it used to be called, “zbiten”) is a traditional Russian drink. Its name comes from the verb “to knock down”, since the basis of its preparation was precisely churning. The drink was served hot, it consisted of pure water and bee honey, with the addition of various spices and medicinal herbs, and was brewed in large samovars. The word “sbiten” can first be seen in the chronicles of the Slavs, which date back to the 12th century (1128). Until the end of the 19th century. Peasants and noble families drank this drink instead of tea.

There were even special establishments called “knitted kitchens”, located in crowded places and representing “windows”. People could buy the drink in different variations there. After the October Revolution, the consumption of sbiten practically disappeared. But now its popularity is growing again, and many housewives have learned to prepare the drink themselves.

How to cook sbiten at home?

Compound:

Water - 3 l
Honey - 350 g
Sugar - 250 g
Black tea - 100 g
Ground cinnamon - ½ tsp.
Cloves - ½ tsp.
Ground nutmeg- ¼ tsp.
Celery stalk - 100 g
Lemon zest -5 tbsp.

Preparation:

So, first you need to boil the water. To do this, pour water into a deep container, after boiling, add sugar and honey. Mix the ingredients and cook until dissolved.
Brew in a separate bowl strong tea, then strain it and pour it into a pan with a sweet brew.
Place celery, spices and lemon zest. The drink is brewed for about 10 minutes, then removed from the stove, covered with a lid and infused for several minutes.
When the sbiten is completely ready, strain it and boil again.
The drink is poured into cups and served hot.
You can put slices of lemons or oranges in it. This sbiten is good to drink when you have a cold.

How to cook strawberry sbiten?

Compound:

Honey - 300 g
Water - 5 l
Strawberry juice - 500 ml
Mint - 2 tbsp.
St. John's wort - 1 tsp.
Sage - 2 tsp.

Preparation:

First, boil the water, then pour in the strawberry juice and boil again. Add natural honey, mint, St. John's wort and sage.
Cook the sbiten for about an hour, periodically removing the resulting foam. Strain the finished sbiten and serve, pouring it into beautiful glasses.
Strawberry sbiten will become an excellent alternative fruit tea. Instead of strawberries, you can take other fruits and berries (currants, raspberries, blueberries, apples, pears), resulting in a completely different warming drink.

Sbiten: recipe with ginger

Compound:

Water - 3 l
Honey - 300 g
Ground cloves - 2 tsp.
Fir - 100 g
Ginger root - 50 g
Sage - 4 tbsp.
Ground cinnamon -2 tsp.

Preparation:

Take a large saucepan, put spices and herbs in it (fir, sage, cinnamon and chopped ginger root). Fill the ingredients with water, put the saucepan on the fire, boil and leave to simmer for 10 minutes.
Leave the finished sbiten for half an hour so that it brews well. At the end of cooking, add the remaining ingredients - honey, cloves and cook over low heat for 20-25 minutes.
Churning with ginger will be an excellent medicine during a cold, as well as a prophylactic during a flu epidemic.

Sbiten classic: recipe

Compound:

Water - 3 l
Honey - 300 g
Sugar - 200 g
St. John's wort - 4 tsp.
Chopped cloves - 3 tsp.
Black peppercorns - 10 pcs.
Ground ginger - 1 tsp.
Cinnamon - 2 tsp.
Mint - 3 tsp.
Thyme - 1 tsp.
Cardamom - 1 tsp.
Lemon - 1 pc.

Preparation:

Honey is poured into 2 tbsp. water and stir until completely dissolved. Honey water pour into a saucepan and boil. Skim the foam periodically and add sugar. Cook the mixture over low heat until homogeneous mass(do not bring to a boil).
Pour the remaining water into a large saucepan, add spices and cook under closed lid about 20 min. Leave the cooked spices to steep for 10 minutes, then strain and mix with the honey mixture. Heat the drink, but do not bring it to a boil.
Serve the sbiten hot with lemon slices.

Homemade sbiten with wine: recipe

Compound:

Wine - 3 l
Honey - 250 g
Cloves - 5 pcs.
Nutmeg - 1 tsp.
Ground cinnamon - 1 tsp.

Preparation:

To prepare this sbiten, it is better to choose dry red wine (mostly homemade). Pour wine into the pan, heat it, but do not boil it. Add spices and honey, heat slightly (do not bring to a boil).
Infuse the wine down for 30 minutes for richness and aroma. Then it is recommended to strain the drink.
This sbiten recipe tastes like mulled wine, is served hot and perfectly warms up on cold winter evenings.

Moscow sbiten: recipe

Compound:

Water - 7 l
White molasses - 1 kg
Honey - 300 g
Cloves - 7 pcs.
Cinnamon - 2 tsp.
Ground ginger - 3 tsp.
Black peppercorns - 15 pcs.
Cardamom - 5 pcs.
Star anise - 5 pcs.

Preparation:

Boil water in a deep saucepan, dissolve honey along with molasses. Brew sweet water about 15 - 20 min. Add cloves, cinnamon, ginger, star anise, pepper and cardamom.
Cook the sbiten with spices for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Pour the finished drink into glasses or cups.

Sbiten is a native Russian warming drink that was previously drunk instead of tea. Thanks to its restorative and anti-inflammatory properties, sbiten is good to take during a cold, as well as during winter time years instead of a strengthening agent. Sbiten recipes a large number of, so everyone will find one that suits their taste.