samogon , the native illicit spirit of Russia—the Russian form of moonshine—is said to have been first produced in response to Ivan the Terrible’s monopolization of wine production in the sixteenth century. Seemingly every Russian government since has attempted to enforce some sort of prohibition, but all have failed. (Samogon is also distilled in Belarus and in Ukraine as samohon.)
The word samogon means “self-distilled,” and like all home brews it is made from whatever happens to be around—fruit, grain, honey, potatoes, beets—and has a reputation for potency that does not reflect the reality. (Ethanol is ethanol, after all, and bootleggers aren’t in the business of making it any stronger than it has to be.) It is almost always pot-distilled, in homemade equipment that varies widely in size and sophistication. Ad-hoc, Rube Goldberg assemblies of kitchenware are not unknown, but neither are rectification columns. See rectification and still, pot.
After distillation, samogon aspires to be a neutral spirit (as with all illicit products, results vary widely) ready for infusion with herbs and spices such as saffron, rosemary, lemon peel, or cardamon; dried fruits; or roasted barley.
In the 1970s an economist at Duke University gathered data about food production in the Soviet Union, and by collating the numbers for alcohol and the agricultural products used to produce alcohol (and looking at what was unaccounted for), he deduced that the production of samogon in the second half of the twentieth century increased the total alcohol production in Russia by one-third. In 1988, a survey found that 68 percent of agricultural, 45 percent of industrial, and 24 percent of intellectual workers drank homemade alcoholic beverages. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, samogon production and consumption have only increased, sometimes to a truly alarming level.
See also moonshine; Russia and Eastern Europe; and vodka.
Zaigraev, Grigory. “The Russian Model of Non-commercial Alcohol Consumption.” In Moonshine Markets, ed. Alan Haworth and Ronald Simpson, 31–40. New York: Brunner Routledge, 2004.
By: Max Watman