Mors

We drink a lot of mors around here. We buy it in boxes at the store, but my sources say that true mors is made by adding water to an almost-empty jar of jelly and shaking vigorously.

The good old Domostroy (16th century) contradicts this, giving the following recipe:

"О морсе ягодном. Готовить простой морс ягодный можно из любых ягод. Сложить ягоды с водой в котел так, чтобы проняло их, но к котлу бы не пригорели, да варить в котле ягоды с водою долго, пока не разварятся ягоды, и на ночь их ставить, чтоб отстоялся морс ягодный от гущи начисто, затем слить тот морс ягодный с гущи и разлить его по бочкам, в которых не было дрожжей."

My translation:

"On berry mors. Simple mors may be made from any type of berry. Put the berries in a pot with enough water to keep them from sticking and simmer until the berries fall apart. Leave the pot overnight for the sediment to settle. Filter off the berry mors and pour it into barrels that have never held any yeast."

That recipe would make a mors that is much less sweet than either jelly-jar water or the mors you can buy at the store. Sounds pretty good if you drink it cold.

What about the word itself?

Vasmer says mors probably comes from the Romanian word múrsă, which he says meant "honey water, juice or liquid." My paper etymological dictionary goes further, stating that the Romanian word can be traced to the Latin mulsa, "honey drink." It also offers the German word for cranberry, moosbeere, as a possible source.

I noticed that Domostroy classifies mors along with medovukha and other drinks made from honey.

As a culinary-legal aside, GOST 51398-99 defines mors as a juice drink containing less than 25% juice. I read that in the July 2009 issue of Gastronom, and I have the strangest sense of translator's deja-vu that I have translated that GOST at some point in my life.