Alcohol-Free Bread Kvass with Lemon and Mint
Reader ratingsDried rye bread and fresh mint steeped in boiling water, sweetened with dark treacle and sharpened with lemon, then lifted with soda water: Molokhovets’s 1887 kvass made without yeast.
- Recipe makes
- About 1.2 liters, 6 glasses
- Prep
- Total
The bread and mint steep for 2 to 3 hours until cool; chill the base before serving.
Alcohol-free bread kvass with lemon and mint in a plain glass, with a jug and pieces of dried rye bread.
The story behind the recipe
This is Elena Molokhovets’s rye-bread kvass without the yeast: dried rye bread and fresh mint steeped in boiling water, sweetened with dark treacle, sharpened with lemon and lifted with soda water at the table. Her 1887 A Gift to Young Housewives gives the bread, water and treacle; she ferments them with yeast and bottles them with raisins, so her kvass always holds a little alcohol.
Borrowed from three recipes
The lemon and mint come from her own pages. On the same page as the bread kvass, a second way with rye bread sweetens it with sugar and adds “1 lemon, sliced, without seeds.” An “excellent kvass” on the page before puts a quarter-pound of mint, boiled or steeped, into the keg.
Leaving out the yeast, and with it the raisins and the two days in the bottle, is our change, and so is the soda water that takes the place of the fizz the yeast would have made. Molokhovets gives no unfermented kvass, so treat this as our adaptation of hers. Her bottled kvass, low in alcohol, is Bread Kvass, the 24-Hour Rye Kvass from 1887.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Dry the bread hard in a low oven, and strain without squeezing, as she says. Taste the base before adding the soda water, and add a little more lemon or dark treacle to taste.
Older drinks without alcohol, from barley water to soda fountain syrups, are followed era by era in Alcohol-Free Drinks Through History. Another fresh mint drink with lemon is Mint Lemonade, the Soda Fountain Way.
Take 3 pounds of stale, well-baked rye bread, cut in small pieces and well dried; put it in a clean small tub, pour over it 24 bottles of boiling water, cover at once with a thick cloth, and let it stand until it is as warm as milk fresh from the cow. Then strain it through a clean napkin, but do not squeeze. To this quantity put 2 pounds of good dark treacle, stir well so that none stays on the bottom, then pour in 2 tablespoons of yeast mixed with 1 spoonful of wheat flour.
Recipe makes: About 1.2 liters, 6 glasses
Ingredients
For About 1.2 liters, 6 glasses. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 1.2 liters, 6 glasses.
- Stale dark rye bread125 g
- Boiling water1 l
- Small handful fresh mint1
- Black treacle60 g
- Lemon, juiced1
- Cold soda water500 ml
- Lemon, sliced, to serve (optional)1
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 125 g stale dark rye bread
- 1 l boiling water
- 1 small handful fresh mint
- 60 g black treacle
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 500 ml cold soda water
- 1 lemon, sliced, to serve (optional)
Equipment
Large heatproof bowl
Sieve lined with muslin or a clean cotton cloth
Jug
Instructions
Cut the stale dark rye bread into small pieces and dry them in the oven at about 120 °C for 30 to 45 minutes, until hard right through.
Put the dried bread and the fresh mint in the bowl, pour on the boiling water, cover at once with a plate and a thick cloth, and leave until cool, 2 to 3 hours.
Strain the liquid through a napkin or muslin laid in the sieve. Let it drip; do not squeeze the bread.
Stir in the black treacle until it dissolves, then the lemon juice. Chill the base in the fridge.
To serve, pour the base into a jug and top it up with the cold soda water. Add the sliced lemon if you like and pour at once.
Nutrition
30calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 1.2 liters, 6 glasses
- Servings
- 6
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for molasses and lemon juice, for one 200 ml glass.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep about half as much soda water as kvass base.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: no yeast, flour or raisins, and no bottling. The bread is the same as in our bottled kvass, a tenth of her No. 2189, with less water, since the soda water makes up the rest; once it is in, the treacle is about a third less than hers. The lemon is from her No. 2190 and the mint from her No. 2186, but the amounts of both are ours; hers are for tubs and kegs. The soda water, the oven drying and chilling the base are ours.
No yeast is added and the base goes straight into the fridge, so it has no time to ferment; keep it cold and drink it the day you make it.
Storage
Best the day it is made. Keep the kvass base covered in the fridge and add the soda water just before serving.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
A modern alcohol-free adaptation of Elena Molokhovets, Podarok molodym khozyaikam (A Gift to Young Housewives), 13th ed. (St Petersburg: Gelpern, 1887), Nos. 2189, 2190 and 2186, pp. 92–93; our translation
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-freeMocktail
- Drink family
- Sodas & Soft Drinks
- Region
- Russian
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1880s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Dry January
- Season
- Summer