Many foreigners who first visited Ukraine expressed sincere surprise and admiration at the taste of unusual drinks, which (apart from our well-known spirits in the world) they were treated.
There are plenty of Ukrainian national drinks according to old folk recipes. By reviewing each of them, you can compose a whole encyclopedia. We collected 5 of them which you can find in Odessa.
Uzvar
This soft drink is a compote of dried fruits, but the difference is that honey is often added to the uzvar, and it can also not be boiled, but brewed. The name comes from the word "brew". Uzvar can not be boiled, but infused.
Usually uzvar is prepared from dried apples, pears, plums, apricots and raisins, but this list can be expanded. Usually uzvar is much thicker, more concentrated than ordinary compotes. It has been an indispensable drink for Christmas and other big church holidays for more than two centuries.
Kissel
There are several varieties of this ancient drink. Kissel is a thick fruit or berry drink, gelatinous in consistency due to the addition of starch. Kissel can be cooked from anything; as a rule, fruits or berries are boiled in water, sugar is added to taste, and then starch is mixed into the broth to achieve the desired density and consistency.
Liquid kissel, which we know now, came to us about the middle of the nineteenth century. Such kissel was prepared on the basis of juices, decoctions with the addition of sugar and was already brewed with new potato or corn starch. Therefore, the modern method of making kissel is based on the addition of starch to juices.
Milk kissel is cooked from cow and almond milk, while there are ancient recipes when kissel was cooked from kvass and honey.
Ryazhenka
This drink was included in the menu by Ukrainian distant ancestors, who understood a lot about wholesome and natural food. For the first time, they began to prepare it in Ukraine from ordinary milk with the addition of cream. Milk diluted with cream was poured into clay jugs and placed inside the oven, and then a little sour cream was added and infused, after about 6 hours a finished drink was obtained with a creamy or brownish tint, thick in consistency and very aromatic.
Thanks to Ukrainian hostesses and the efforts of tourists, the drink began to spread throughout Russia, then in Belarus. Now, residents of Europe, USA, Canada and other countries enjoy tasty and healthy fermented baked milk. In addition to its interesting and unusual taste, fermented baked milk is famous for its excellent thirst quencher.
Spotykach
There is a say: Spotykach - the head is clear, but the legs do not walk. Spotykach is a Ukrainian sweet alcoholic drink made on the basis of berries, dried fruits, spices, herbs, sugar and good samogon.
This drink is distinguished by the original manufacturing technology with the obligatory heat treatment of the ingredients, as well as an interesting effect on the body, to which the drink, in fact, owes its wonderful name: the head is clear and the legs begin to braid into intricate knots.
The most common spottykach are made of blackcurrant, raspberry, strawberry, cherry, plum, grape, cranberry, prepared in almost the same way. Of the Ukrainian folk, the drink options are popular on green walnuts (analogue), acacia flowers, roses, mint, prunes, and from modern ones, on lemon.
Medovukha
Medovukha is one of the oldest, tastiest and healthiest alcoholic beverages invented by mankind. Honey alcohol was known to many early Indo-European communities, as well as to some non-Indo-European proto-ethnic groups (for example, the ancestors of modern Ethiopians), at least since the late Neolithic. In the early Middle Ages, the drink spread throughout Europe: from the British Isles to the Ural Mountains. The Eastern Slavs were no exception. Here from time immemorial they used a honey drink, which received a completely logical and expected name: Medovukha ( Med - Honey).
Over time, there were a lot of varieties of medovukha, including with the addition of ethyl alcohol. Drinking honey is an old Ukrainian drink that is now gaining more and more popularity among gourmets and lovers of natural national products. Historical information shows that in the territories of modern Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus to the Zaporozhye Sich, it was the only alcoholic drink.
