Milk, Straight from Where?!

You all just lost your jobs now.

Ever hear of Kumis? No? Don't feel bad, neither have we, at least not up until one of our followers on Twitter sent us this little juicy milky gem. The rest is below the break for all the details.

So apparently, Kumis is actually fermented milk from a mare. As in milk from an actual female horse. According to the video, this drink is popular up in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and all the rest of the -stan countries.

"I a-drink this everyday, and it make wife not look so ugly! High five!"

But if you're thinking this is something new, guess again. Having its usage been traced back to 4300 B.C, people have been drinking this stuff for quite a long time now. The most important part of it? Because it's fermented, it'll get you Slav-girl wasted drunk. Though we can't imagine the taste to be very good. Having said that, if any of you have ever tried it before, let us know how good or bad it was.

So how do you go about making this, you ask? Well, first you want to make sure the horse you have is a mare, and not a stallion. At that point, it's not milk you're drinking there, buddy.

>"Y'all can try to milk me any day, Anon."

Mares obviously don't give as much milk as a cow does, so you might need a few mares to get a party going. From what we have found, Kumis is made by fermenting raw unpasteurized mare's milk over the course of hours or days, often while stirring or churning. (The physical agitation has similarities to making butter). During the fermentation, lactobacilli bacteria acidify the milk, and yeasts turn it into a carbonated and mildly alcoholic drink. So that's about roughly 2.5% alcoholic content.

>"You got me a new drink there, Anon? Wait, what do you mean by *I* am the one making it?"

The reason why Kumis has a natural alcoholic twist to it is because mare's milk typically contains more sugar in it, in comparison to a cow's milk. The old original process of fermenting the milk was to keep it in a leather bag of sorts, and to keep the thing in motion for a long time, as to prevent it from congealing. Though nowadays you can use a barrel or a plastic vat, so long as the thing stays in motion somehow. For that, you must get creative.

What's more interesting is what happens after you make the Kumis, and then attempt to distill it. The result is called Arkhi, which has about a 10% alcoholic content if made correctly. Here's a Mongolian guide on how to turn Kumis, or as they call it Kefir, into Arkhi - in the traditional way.