Arashan Balsam
The other day I returned to my office from a meeting to discover a small gift on my desk that a visitor had left in my absence: a bottle of Arashan Balsam.
Balsam, or balsam, is the Russian word for Balm: a liniment or aromatic preparation made from a selection of herbs known for their benefits, and used to relieve pain, colds, flu and a host of little everyday ailments. Balsam’s have been used by people all over the world for centuries and there are many famous examples. Apparently, there are records from the seventeenth century of doctors using a mix of medicinal balm and vodka and in the following century a pharmacist gave a bottle to the Empress Catherine, but it is not clear where this came from. In the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union there were many Balsams that were popular that came from Russia, Byelorussia … and also Kyrgyzstan.
The balsam, Arashan, from Kyrgyzstan was so famous amongst the Russians that it became the “visiting card” of the republic. It has been taken into space by cosmonauts.
Although the modern drink is a fairly recent innovation, made by Kyrgyz Konyagiy, (who manufacture various local brands of Cognac), to a recipe devised by the Academician Almazbek Altymyshev, it is based on centuries of tradition. As one commentator puts it, Arashan’s “date of birth” is “lost in the annals of history”.
The nomadic Kyrgyz collected many herbs from the jailoo, (high mountain meadows), and used them for many different purposes: culinary, dying fabrics in addition to medicinal.
They would mix a concoction for domestic use, but it was Altymyshev who codified a recipe back in the 1970’s which “absorbed the heat of the sun, the scent of mountain meadows and the love of his native land”. It proved popular with the political and intellectual elite of the Soviet Union, and in one of the industry’s international competitions in 1998, one of the judges asked a Kyrgyz representative about the possibility of it being distributed once more in Russia. That inspired him and on his return to Kyrgyzstan he began work on re-launching the product.
The exact recipe is a closely guarded secret, but the ingredients apparently include a variety of over twenty different herbs, berries, grapes, barberry, black cherry, buckthorn, oak bark, pomegranate, red and blackcurrants, rosehip, sage, wormwood, and walnuts, mixed with honey, oils, (including balsamic Peruvian oil – yes, “Peruvian”, although I am told it is found here in Kyrgyzstan), mineral water … and infused with brandy giving it an alcoholic content of over 40%.
The ingredients have to be collected at different times and added to the mix at different stages of manufacture so that they are in the form and consistency for the final product.
The resulting thick, resinous aromatic liquid is rich in vitamins and microelements, which should be kept in a bottle of dark glass to avoid light dissipating its effectiveness.
Apparently, Balsam can be taken as medicine, by the teaspoonful, but most people take it by stirring a dessertspoonful into a cup of tea of coffee and drinking the mix slowly.
Bishkek