Sbiten, also sbiten' is a hot winter Russian traditional drink.

History

First mentioned in Slavonic chronicles in 1128, it remained popular with all strata of Russian society until the 19th century when it was replaced by coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 and tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

. It is being revived in the 21st century as a mass-produced drink in Russia.

Preparation

Like mead

Mead

Mead , also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water. It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash, which is strained immediately after fermentation...

 and medovukha

Medovukha

Medovukha is an Old Balto-Slavic honey-based alcoholic beverage very similar to mead. These two words are related and go back to the Proto-Indo-European meddhe...

, sbiten' is based on honey

Honey

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

 mixed with water, spices, and jam. One recipe of sbiten' is described in the 16th-century Domostroy

Domostroy

Domostroy or Domostroi is a 16th century Russian set of household rules, instructions and advices pertaining to various religious, social, domestic, and family matters of the Russian society. Core Domostroi values tended to reinforce obedience and submission to God, Tsar and Church...

. Compared to kvass

Kvass

Kvass, kvas, quass or gira, gėra is a fermented beverage made from black...

, sbiten' is very simple to prepare. In some recipes, honey and sbiten' flavor (spices, juices) are boiled down and then these two parts are combined and boiled again. In other recipes, all the ingredients are combined and boiled at once. The drink can also be made alcoholic by substituting red wine for water. It can be garnished with mint leaves or cinnamon sticks.

In Russia, sbiten is often poured from a large shining copper urn called a samovar

Samovar

A samovar is a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia, as well as in other Central, South-Eastern, Eastern European countries,Kashmir and in the Middle-East...

.

It can also be served cold during the summer.