>>The title is intentionally in cyrillic (which didn't work, was supposed to be "квас, правда?" but the forum software complained it's all uppercase), to attract attention of any Russians around here. I want to know whether this recipe is the traditional one, the genuine article, or is this another hack, like the alcohol-free beer type of drink I found here labeled as "kvas". I remember in the late sixties we did have something else marketed as kvas, and I liked that; the current thing is not even close.
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>>So here's the recipe and I'm awaiting the verdict:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1UTJKBMvgc>
>During the 60s and 70s kvas was a very popular non-alcoholic drink sold from very large barrels on wheels on the streets of many small or large cities in the Soviet Union. I know that it was made from bread and had a kind of a sour taste. It was not unusual to see a line of people waiting to buy a mug (looked like a beer mug) of this drink during warm/hot summer days. It was very inexpensive. But the legend was that the vendor would often put a bar of soap into the barrel to make the kvas to come out with more foam so that they don't have to use as much of it for each customer. Hence make more money.
>Another odd thing (as most in the former SU) was that after finishing the drink people would put the mug back on the tray and the vendor would barely rinse it before filling it up for another customer. Yaak.
Seen such a queue for beer, in march of 1979 in then Leningrad. They had 3 (three!) steins so one is being filled, two are being downed, forty people are in the queue. As soon as the first guy finishes his mug, returns the mug to the clerk and himself to the end of the queue. There was about 15cm of snow on the ground.
Still... about kvas, if you don't know whether this is the (sufficiently) correct recipe, would you know whom to ask?
