booze in russia before 1601

From: David Christian, 'Living Water:' Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve of Emancipation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990)

Alcohol in Medieval Russia

The main alcoholic drinks of medieval Russia were kvas (a barely alcoholic beer based on rye), and meads. There is some evidence of the use of more powerful hopped beers* from the eleventh century, and from the thirteenth century it seems that beer may have replaced mead in the popular diet, as the spread of cultivation destroyed the wild bee population in many areas of Appanage Russia. As a result, the social status of mead rose as it become an item of luxury consumption, increasingly confined to the upper classes.

Alcoholic drinks played a vital role in the ritual, spiritual, and social life of working class Russians in both town and country, from very early times. Most important occasions on the church and agricultural calendars (the two were closely intertwined), and in the life of the individual household, were marked by ceremonies in which alcohol was drunk, sometimes in huge quantities. The traditional pattern of consumption was therefore dominated by periodic binges accompanying the more important religious and personal festivals....

. . . During the massive famine of 1601, Boris Godunov issued instructions that grain was not to be used for brewing or distilling, but added that 'if anyone has to brew not too much beer for great need for major festivals, for the memory of their parents, for a birth or a wedding, [let them], but with great care, so that there is no excessive expenditure of much grain on their intoxicating drink.' . . . p. 23

Note: most of this section is footnoted to Smith & Christian's Bread and Salt