AI-generated image
Sbiten
Sbiten (сбитень): hot Russian honey drink with ginger, cinnamon and cloves
Long before tea reached Russia, street sellers wrapped in shawls carried copper urns of sbiten through winter markets, pouring steaming glasses of spiced honey water for traders and coachmen. It comes back every Maslenitsa at fairs in Moscow and Suzdal, drunk beside blini. The taste is warming and sweet, with the bite of ginger, a bitter edge of bay and clove, and a resinous note from St John's wort or mint. Where most people go wrong is boiling the honey hard, which dulls its perfume; simmer the spices first and dissolve the honey off the boil. Honey should not be given to babies under one year old. Chef's tip: make the spiced base ahead and keep it in the fridge, then reheat a glass at a time and finish with a squeeze of lemon.
- Total time
- 25 min
- Difficulty
- easy
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
- 4 ¼ cups water
- ⅔ oz fresh gingerthinly sliced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp dried mint
- 1 ⅜ oz light brown sugar
- 5 ½ oz runny honey
- 4 lemon slices (optional)to serve
Shop this recipe on Amazon
Spices & pantry
Fresh ingredients (2)
Links open Amazon in a new tab. As an Amazon Associate, WhatToEat.Today earns from qualifying purchases.
Method
0/5 doneStep 1: Bring the 4 ¼ cups water to the boil in a pan with the ⅔ oz fresh ginger, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 whole cloves, 5 black peppercorns and 1 bay leaf.
5 minStep 2: Lower the heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes, until the liquid is pale gold and smells strongly of spice.
10 minStep 3: Add the 1 tsp dried mint and 1 ⅜ oz light brown sugar, stir until dissolved, then take the pan off the heat and leave for 3 minutes.
3 minStep 4: Stir in the 5 ½ oz runny honey until fully dissolved; the drink should be hot but no longer bubbling.
1 minStep 5: Strain into heatproof glasses and serve hot with 4 lemon slices.
1 min
Nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 175 kcal
- Protein
- 0 g
- Carbs
- 46 g
- Fat
- 0 g
- Fibre
- 0 g
Nutrition values are estimates.
KrazyBadal
Good to know
- How long does sbiten take?
- About 25 minutes in total: 5 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to cook.
- How many people does it serve?
- 4 as written. Change the servings above the ingredients and every amount scales to match.
- Is it vegetarian?
- Yes. It has no meat or fish.
- Is it gluten free?
- Yes, as written. Check the labels on stock, sauces and spice mixes, which sometimes contain gluten.
- What can I use instead of fresh ginger?
- ¼ tsp ground ginger per tbsp fresh (add it with the spices).
- What can I use instead of cinnamon stick?
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon per stick.
Reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to cook it.
Rate this recipe
Sign in to rate and review this recipe.
You might also like
Guava delight
A thick, fragrant blend of ripe guava, mango and banana, boosted with a spoonful of guava powder from the health shop. The book calls it a modern-day vitality drink, drawing on guava's long use in traditional Indian medicine. Serve it well chilled; sieve it if you don't like the little guava seeds.
Power pack
A sweet, energising juice of apples, pears and kiwi fruit with a stick of celery, all used unpeeled for extra goodness. It's naturally sweet, so it needs no sugar. Serve well chilled.
Horchata de chufa
Horchata de chufa is the drink of Valencia's summer, sold ice-cold in the city's horchaterías with long, soft fartons pastries for dipping. It is made from chufas, or tiger nuts: small wrinkled tubers grown around the village of Alboraya just north of Valencia, which have their own protected designation of origin. Soaked, ground with water, strained and sweetened, they give a creamy, nutty, naturally dairy-free milk with a hint of cinnamon. Valencians drink it very cold, or half-frozen as 'granizada'. Chef's tip: soak the tiger nuts for a full 24 hours and change the water once; they must be plump and soft enough to blend into a fine pulp, or the horchata will be thin and taste of raw starch.
Spanish