Russia and Eastern Europe form an extensive region that is home to a number of distinct but related distilling and drinking cultures. Largely, but not entirely, Slavic, they can be roughly divided into the grain-distilling cultures in the north (Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia) and the fruit-distilling cultures in the south (the Balkans, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria); into the zone influenced by the Russian Empire and Prussia and the zone influenced by the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.
Distilling seems to have come into the region in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although it is possible that it was previously introduced by the Mongols as they swept through in the thirteenth century. There is a multiplicity of routes it could have followed, and it seems to have taken them all: moving up the Dnieper and Volga rivers into Ukraine and Russia; spreading inland into the Balkans from the Venetian towns of the eastern Adriatic and the Turkish trading posts of the Black Sea and into Poland and Belarus from the trading cities of the eastern Baltic; and diffusing into the Czech and Slovak lands and Hungary from the German-speaking principalities to the west. Already by the 1500s “Hungary water,” a rosemary-infused medicinal spirit supposedly created by the queen of that land, was known throughout Europe, and the extensive glass industry in the Czech province of Bohemia was turning out highly regarded alembics and other distilling equipment.
genever; korn; vodka; and whisky. By the 1520s, Polish distillers were making gorzałka, their ancestor of vodka, and members of the Russian court were regularly drinking spirits (most likely locally made from grain) before meals. In 1553, Ivan the Terrible of Russia limited the spirits trade to a network of state-owned taverns. State control, sometimes tighter, sometimes looser, would remain a feature of Russian distilling through the twentieth century.Although distilling is an excellent, and profitable, way of preserving grain and transporting it, raw grain spirits have always been considered challenging to drink. In western Europe, strategies for taming them focused on flavoring, as with genever and aquavit, or (following the lead of French brandy) barrel maturation, as in Scotch and Irish whisky. In Poland and Russia, however, the focus was on rectification: distilling them to as high proof as possible and heavily filtering the result. See filtration and rectification. By the nineteenth century, this rectified spirit was occasionally also barrel aged, yielding starka. See starka. It was also commonly flavored, either before distillation or after (preparing home-made infusions was and remains a popular practice). Some of the most common botanicals used include bison grass (żubrówka), hot peppers (pertsovka), and lemon peel. Fresh-fruit infusions (nalivkas) are also popular. These are often sweetened, as are some of the botanical spirits, yielding local specialties such as the Baltic krupnik and the caraway-flavored kümmel. See honey liqueurs; kümmel; and nalivka.
For the most part, however, plain vodka is the drink and has been for a very long time. Following the old adage “Distillation follows industrialization,” its manufacture was brought to a great state of technical perfection in the late nineteenth century, and there it has remained, through the brutal years of war that characterized the twentieth century and under the heavy hand of communist rule. Most vodka is made from wheat or rye, but the nineteenth century saw potato spirits introduced in quantity, and Poland in particular makes a number of high-quality potato vodkas. See Moskovskaya Osobaya; Russian Standard; Smirnoff; and Stolichnaya.
In the Habsburg and Ottoman south of the region, the frequently mountainous terrain tended to limit the amount of grain that could be practically grown, and thus the excess capacity that lent itself to distillation. Fruit trees, however, did particularly well, and distilling proved to be an excellent way of preserving the harvest. Fruit eaux-de-vie became a regional specialty, made by farmers throughout the area. Slivovitz, Hungarian pálinka, Serbian rakija, and Rumanian țuică are all modern descendants of these medieval spirits and are still often made on the village or individual farm level. There they are pot stilled; on the industrial level, where they are also made, hybrid stills or even continuous stills can be used. See
In parts of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, distillation increased with industrialization. In the nineteenth century, the Czech lands, Galicia to their east, and parts of Hungary all developed modern industries making spirit from beet molasses, potatoes, and maize. Inevitably, these spirits found their way into such local drinks as borovička, the Czechoslovak version of gin, various liqueurs, and the cheap blends with imported spirits known as verschnitt, or “cut,” spirits. See rum and verschnitt.
To balance out this industrial production, there is another characteristic of the region: there is an unusual level of home distilling throughout the area, north and south. In the Balkans, this is mostly legal and is a basic part of farming. In the north, and particularly in Russia and the former parts of the Soviet Union, it is as illegal as it is fantastically persistent. This samogon, as it is called, can be made from anything, with equipment that can range from repurposed kitchen implements to thoroughly professional distillation apparatus. See samogon.
Another distinctive feature of the region is the heavy Jewish involvement in distilling and selling spirits, a profession that was outside the traditional, Christian-only guild system. In tsarist Russia, Jews were often the holders of the local distilling monopolies. In the Baltic countries, they were among the largest distillers. In parts of Hungary, as much as a quarter of the large Jewish population was involved in the distilling trade. In the twentieth century, Nazi genocide and communist nationalization basically put an end to this long tradition, but some brands still survive. See Jelínek and kosher spirits.
Finally, something must be said about the region’s particular spirits-drinking culture. To do it justice would require a book of its own. We may begin by establishing what it is not. Despite the fact that cocktail books were published in Prague and Budapest as early as the 1890s and continued to be published in the region even during Soviet times; despite Slovakia’s propensity for producing some of the world’s most respected bartenders (e.g., Erik Lorincz, head bartender at London’s Savoy Hotel from 2010 until 2017); despite the presence of modern, creative, and highly respected cocktail bars in many of the region’s cities, it is not primarily a cocktail culture. See Savoy Hotel’s American Bar. Vodka does not need mixing, and for the most part it is not mixed. It is drunk neat, always accompanied by something to nibble on—zakuski, which can be as humble as pickles and as luxurious as caviar—and elaborate, heartfelt toasts. What applies to vodka in the north applies to fruit brandies in the south: toasts, food, relentless conviviality. This culture can be, and often is, taken to excess, but there is a majesty to it that can make the more restrained drinking cultures seem wan by comparison.
Erofeev, Venedikt. Moscow to the End of the Line. Translated by H. William Tjalsma. New York: Penguin, 1992.
Herlihy, Patricia. The Alcoholic Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Mew, James, and John Ashton. Drinks of the World. London: Leadenhall, 1892.
Schrad, Mark Lawrence. Vodka Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/default.aspx (accessed 8 June, 2021).
By: David Wondrich
Small molded-glass pre-Revolutionary Smirnoff vodka bottle.
Wondrich Collection.
Small molded-glass pre-Revolutionary Smirnoff vodka bottle. Source: Wondrich Collection.