The Polish pastime of making flavored vodkas has caught on in our home in a big way. There aren’t many fruits in season now, so I made Krupnik, a vodka sweetened with honey and infused with spices.
Krupnik originated in the area that is now Belarus in the 1600s, it was then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Legend has it Krupnik may have first been made at a Benedictine Monastery in Niasviz.
This distant cousin of mead or miodowka has endless variations, with the taste changing based on the variety of honey used and the spices and or herbs added.
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Another Krupnik recipe in the book uses, orange zest, and nutmeg, in addition to the honey, vodka, allspice, vanilla pod, clove, and cinnamon.
The honey flavored liqueur can be served at room temperature, chilled, or heated. My recipe, which I’ve translated from Wielka Ksiega Nalewek (The Big Book of Tinctures) suggests that if you serve Krupnik heated, try adding a small piece of chocolate and a dab of butter.
I’ve tried it warm and found the fumes overpowering. I’ll stick to room temp or chilled.
If you enjoyed this recipe, please leave a comment and rate it 5 Stars. Thanks in advance. 🙂
Na zdrowie,
Lois
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Krupnik, a Polish honey liqueur
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 25 mins
- Yield: 1 quart 1x
- Category: Liqueur
- Cuisine: Polish
Description
A honey and spice liqueur recipe that dates back 400 years
Ingredients
- 2 cups clover honey
- 2 whole cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- zest of 1/2 lemon, remove with vegetable peeler
- 1/4 vanilla bean pod, sliced open
- 1 allspice berry
- 2 cups vodka
Instructions
- Pour honey into a saucepan
- Add cloves, cinnamon, lemon zest, vanilla, and allspice
- Warm (enough to thin, but keeping under a boil) and steep for 10 minutes
- Add vodka
- Remove from heat and let steep for a couple of hours
- Pour through strainer
- Pour into bottles
- Seal bottles
- Serve warm, at room temp, or chilled
Notes
If serving warm, add a small piece of chocolate and a small dab of butter
You can make this with spirytus, If using 2 cups of spirytus rather than 2 cups of vodka, add 2 cups of water to the honey before heating.
An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com, she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.
Ed Switalski
Wouldn’t, the addition of vodka or spiritus and then simmering, lose the alcohol content of the drink? Ethanol, boils at 78.6 degrees Celsius. To simmer means to bring near a boil (95 degree Celsius). I would recommend letting the mixture cool down before adding any alcohol, and let the flavours infuse slowly and naturally. Cheers!
polishhousewife
You make a scientifically sound point, Ed. I’m removing the simmer after the vodka is added. The cookbook took it further than I did, it wanted to boil the spiritus, maybe to make it less potent.
In one of the other recipes, it also had you adding spiritus while it was on the heat, and the recipe said, “pray to God it doesn’t flame up.”
One advantage I do see to the honey being warm, is that it’s less viscous and the vodka combines easily.
David
This sounds so interesting, Lois. I love making homemade liqueurs and it could be fun to try this with different honeys.
polishhousewife
David, you could play around with the spice combination too.
Terenia murdock
Thank you for this! I lost both my parents way before there time, mama at 61 and tata at 67. And never got a lot of there recipes. I look forward to making krupnik and many more recipes.
polishhousewife
It’s my pleasure, Terenia. I’m sorry you didn’t have more time with your dear parents, but hopefully revisiting their recipes will bring back many happy memories. Pozdrowiam!
Ed
Thanks for the recipe. I found the result to be much too sweet, tasting almost like straight honey. Aside from the sweetness It did taste wonderful though and worked wonders on my cough. I wonder if the spyritus version is a bit less sweet. I believe Everclear would work in place of the spyritus.
Also, I brought the mixture back to the boil after adding the vodka and then removed from heat and put a lid on it. Shouldn’t result in too much alcohol evaporating away and it let the spices steep at a warm temperature for longer.
Thanks again!
polishhousewife
Hi, Ed, I think Everclear would be a good substitute for spyritus, or just use more vodka to dilute the sweetness. I’m glad to hear it helped your cough!
Laura M Lake
My grandma squeezed the lemon juice in as well. We kids got the tiniest drop of this when we were sick. She boiled it a bit, on purpose, because she wanted it to be lower alcohol. Its three years later, but thought i would chip in.
polishhousewife
Thanks, Laura!
John Bryk
Don’t boil honey.
I’m a beekeeper. Trust me.
polishhousewife
Thanks for the tip, John. I defer to your expertise! 🙂
WILF SUKOWSKI
I agree with John. You should never heat honey above 110F or you will lose all the natural vitamins and biproducts of pure natural honey. If you use honey from a store, it wont matter because it has been pasteurized above 140 degrees and will have no natural additives or vitamins left. The pasteurization kills any helpful additives in the pure raw honey.
I also am a beekeeper for many years and have made mead and other liquor based drinks using honey.
Rob
Did you alter your recipe lately? …and update your website? I could swear i had made a recipe for “the polishHousewife” but this is not the recipe!! 🙁 The one i am looking for includded peppercorns.
polishhousewife
Hi Rob, the only changes to the recipe have been to incorporate reader recommendaitons regarding the temperature during the preparation process. It must have been another website.
Eugene boryca
Great
Susan Dechant
I noticed other recipes use water in the mix, but yours does not. Is this correct?
Thank you.
polishhousewife
Usually, they’re adding water if they’re making it with spiritus, 96% alcohol, rather than vodka. If it seems too strong with vodka, you could add a spoon or two (of water) at a time until you get the strength you like.
Liz
How long does this keep?
polishhousewife
I want to say indefinitely, Liz, but a year or two is probably a better answer. It has a long shelf-life.
Susan M Balunda
I’m going to try making this this weekend. It sounds delicious.
Mike, Sweden
I make this recipe often. I use spirits and honey from my own bee hives. Always tastes delicious. Thank you!
polishhousewife
Your own honey, how marvelous!
Penelope
Thank you so much for this recipe! My father’s grandparents on both sides were Polish immigrants. His mother told me about krupnik but I have never lived in a place where it was available locally. Now I can make it myself! I made it at Christmas time for my husband and I and for my best girlfriend and her husband (since she too has Polish-born great-grandparents) and it was a huge hit with everyone! My little boys (who were NOT allowed to taste…but didn’t really want to, either LOL) said that it made the kitchen smell so Christmas-y.
I used both lemon and orange zest, and that was nice. I also used 1/2 a vanilla bean pod because I love it and it was Christmas so I was splurging. I did also use grated nutmeg and I will NOT do that again as it did make the mixture a tiny bit cloudy. Might try a whole nutmeg cracked in half or something like that, but the powdered stuff was a bad idea since I wanted it to be pretty in the jar I gave to my best girlfriend.
I want to second the motion about it being very good for a cold or cough. I had a small serving one evening when I had a sore throat and WHOA did that burn! But the sore throat was gone by the next morning!
Thank you again for the awesome recipe!!!
Greg
Love this recipe
Greetings from Australia
I also have my own bee hives so use my own raw honey
I followed your recipe exactly except I used a product called TriVoski (22% alcohol) instead of vodka
The final product would end up at about 11% alcohol I guess
The final product was amazing
My wife wouldn’t let it cool down before tasting
Not sure I want to experiment with the spices as I think
you have it spot on
As a Pharmacist I can see how it would treat a sore throat
polishhousewife
Hello Greg, I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed the krupnik and appreciate your professional advice. I wonder if TriVoski is something I can buy in the USA.
Robes
I used a small amount of water to boil the spice on low fire. I mixed clover honey and basic honey. I think too much clover could be overpowering. I also used a few small slices of candied ginger chopped fine. Every time I make it it tastes better.
Alan
A wonderful recipe – thank you.
Sachin Lawande
My fried got a bottle of Krupnik from Polan in 2018 … now (in June 2021) I still havent opened it and am seeing some coagulate particles floating around. Has it gone bad? Please advise.
polishhousewife
I’m no expert, Sachin. I’ve never kept a bottle that long.
Beth
Hi there, does this keep for long if you don’t use “canning” techniques? I’m having a hard time finding the shelf life and whether you need to use a canning process? What if I just put the drink in mason jars and refrigerated? Thanks!
polishhousewife
Mason jars and refrigerating will work just fine. Ideally, I would say the shelf-life is one year. It’s not so much that it goes bad, but the flavors may deteriorate over time.