Birch Juice Season Has Arrived!

Spring is finally moving into Odessa and the rest of the country, and we all know what that means: birch juice season? Yes, available in most supermarkets now is the juice from Betula pendula, the white birch tree, or берёза (beroza) in Russian/Ukrainian.



After reading all about the practice of extracting and drinking birch juice in Ukraine (as documented by The Pickle Project), I decided to give it a try. I went to my local market and found a glass bottle of birch juice on the bottom shelf of the nectar/juice aisle. I know that this store-bought version is nothing like fresh juice from the forest, but oh well that's what I get for living in a big city. After buying the juice, I quickly brought it home and let it cool in the fridge for a few hours before pouring myself a nice, tall glass. The taste is basically like a woody, watered down maple syrup. Because the juice spoils quickly, the supermarket version I bought was pasteurized and pretty heavily sweetened, killing what I imagine to be the juice's naturally subtle taste. Trying this store-bought variety just made me want to get on a marshrutka headed north and drink a glass straight from the source.


And on a somewhat related note--Apparently in Belarus there's a company that puts out birch vodka.


Well!


SaM.