Drinking Kvass in The Sunshine

An eastern European soft drink that hits the spot on a sunny day

A unique sight in the marketplaces and streets of eastern Europe is the Kvass Barrel. These bright yellow behemoths, on distinctly farm-vehicle looking wheels, are hauled into town each morning, ready to dole out small glasses of a sweet brown liquid to thirsty shoppers.

Kvass is a drink made from fermented rye bread (or rye flour), and it is slightly sour, gently carbonated, and incredibly sweet. You can often find it on the menu in restaurants, and homemade versions can be incredibly delicious, but commercial versions are also available made with liquid malt and lacking the home fermented character.

To make it, you mix together a mash of the bread, sugar, water and baker’s yeast, and allow it to bubble away for about 12 hours at room temperature. The yeast begins to ferment the sugary liquid, giving a light carbonation and a very small amount of alcohol. (Baker’s yeast isn’t anywhere near as good at fermenting sugars into ethanol as brewer’s yeast, but if you left it for longer you’d probably get something that would give you a buzz).

Photo by David Foodphototasty on Unsplash

The closest thing we have in the UK is dandelion and burdock, these two both share a slightly herbal or spicy sourness, but really it’s very unique. You will find kvass sellers in parks, markets, street celebrations, and even waiting for you at border crossings - ready to alleviate your thirst after a standing in a long queue to be admitted.

The experience of enjoying a flimsy paper cup of kvass from a tank and wandering around a green market, such as the one in Chișinău in Moldova, is affirming. Drinking an ancient beverage and buying fruit, honey, and the kind of vegetables bursting with such a vitality you can never replicate at Tesco, has no equal. Similarly in the baking heat of the eastern European summer (such as the day spent walking in Kyiv where I don’t think I saw a single patch of shade) kvass is uniquely satiating, it is more gentle and wholesome than coca-cola, and you also don’t need to cart around a 500ml bottle, slowly getting hotter and less appealing as the day goes on.

There are other soft drinks that are popular in this region. In most restaurants you can order homemade kompot, a fruit and sugar concoction that is served hot or cold, and gives you a semblance of health. Lurid green tarragon lemonade known as tarkhuna is an alternative, again this is tooth achingly sweet, a colour unknown to nature, but also complex enough to be refreshing. Some varieties also come in woodruff flavour, another green concoction, but that has notes of angelica and vanilla and is somewhat more calm tasting than the aggressive tarragon. My advice for woodruff flavouring is to save it for Berlin, where you can try the sweet and sour local beer known as Berlinerwiesse that is often served with a pump of woodruff syrup.

Trying the local food and drink when traveling is essential. Although each culture has a unique palate and preference, some of my most enjoyable moments abroad have been when I’m just walking around a town, with a little paper cup of kvass in my hand.