flipSbiten with honey and spices
Sbiten with honey and spices
Why this dish? Before tea reigned supreme, sbiten — a hot honey-and-spice drink — warmed Russians through the long St. Petersburg winters. For Anna, keeper of a home where late nights were spent over manuscripts, a hot, sweet drink in the evening was a small daily comfort.
A steaming infusion of melted honey, flavored with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, once sold on the streets in winter.
On evenings when the cold bit even inside the apartment, I would melt honey in the boiling water of the samovar and throw in a little ginger, cinnamon, a clove. It perfumed the whole room. We would sip it slowly, hands around the glass, while my husband read his pages aloud. It is a drink from our homeland, older than tea; merchants still cried it in the frozen streets of my youth.
- •Honey — a good ladleful (sweet base)
- •Water — as needed (liquid)
- •Ginger — a piece (spice)
- •Cinnamon, cloves — to taste (flavoring)
- •Bay leaf or dried mint — a little (flavoring)
Sbiten with honey and spices
A steaming infusion of melted honey, flavored with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, once sold on the streets in winter.
Why this dish? Before tea reigned supreme, sbiten — a hot honey-and-spice drink — warmed Russians through the long St. Petersburg winters. For Anna, keeper of a home where late nights were spent over manuscripts, a hot, sweet drink in the evening was a small daily comfort.
On evenings when the cold bit even inside the apartment, I would melt honey in the boiling water of the samovar and throw in a little ginger, cinnamon, a clove. It perfumed the whole room. We would sip it slowly, hands around the glass, while my husband read his pages aloud. It is a drink from our homeland, older than tea; merchants still cried it in the frozen streets of my youth.
Ingredients (period version)
- Honey — a good ladleful (sweet base)
- Water — as needed (liquid)
- Ginger — a piece (spice)
- Cinnamon, cloves — to taste (flavoring)
- Bay leaf or dried mint — a little (flavoring)
Ingredients
- Honey — 4 tbsp (sweet base)
- Water — 1 liter (liquid)
- Fresh ginger — 2 cm, grated (spice)
- Cinnamon stick — 1 (flavoring)
- Cloves — 3 (flavoring)
- Dried mint — 1 tsp (optional) (freshness)
Method
- Bring the water to a simmer with the ginger, cinnamon, and cloves; let infuse 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat, add the honey off the boil and stir until dissolved (boiled honey loses its fragrance).
- Strain, add mint if desired, let steep 2 minutes.
- Serve very hot in glasses held Russian-style.
How it was made : Sbiten was sold on the street from a container resembling a samovar worn over the shoulder; it was the popular winter drink par excellence in the 18th–19th centuries, before cheap tea gradually supplanted it.
The contemporary twist : Serve the sbiten in a glass set in a metal glass-holder (podstakannik) with a cinnamon stick as a stirrer — the spirit of the samovar in a cup.
Anna Grigorievna Snitkina · Charactorium
