Sbiten

[5] First mentioned in chronicles in 1128, sbiten remained popular with all classes of Russian society until the 19th century when it was replaced by coffee and tea.

[7] After the breakup of the Soviet Union, it was revived as a sickly sweet and spicy syrup widely distributed through monastery shops.

[8] In September 2018, Vladimir Putin bought a bottle of sbiten at a market in Vladivostok and presented it to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

[5] It was usually a stout strong man, as it required great physical strength to carry a string of glasses and a metal pot full of sbiten.

[5] The comic opera Sbitenshchik (Сбитенщик) by Yakov Knyazhnin with music by Czech composer Antoine Bullant (1783) was very popular in Russia at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.