Boza

Boza, also bosa (from Turkish: boza ), is a popular fermented beverage in Kazakhstan, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, parts of Romania, Serbia. It is a malt drink made from maize (corn) and wheat in Albania and Kosovo, fermented wheat in Turkey, and wheat or millet in Bulgaria and Romania. In Egypt where it is known as "būẓa" (بوظة) it is usually made from barley. It has a thick consistency, a low alcohol content (around 1%), and a slightly acidic sweet flavor.

The etymon boza is also known from the Bulgarian drink buzá ‘a grey kvass-like drink’, borrowed by Turkish and perhaps the source of English booze ‘an alcoholic beverage’ via Romani (cf. also Chagatai, Ottoman Turkic etc. boza ‘drink made of camel’s milk’ and Chuvash pora, its r-Turkic counterpart, which may ultimately the source of the Germanic beer-word). Quite remarkably, modern Greek μπούζα (boúza), obviously a late loan, means ‘water elder’ – either it is a South Slavic loan although South Slavic forms seem to reflect only *bьзь (*b’z’) – or it is directly from Turkish with a meaning not attested there, having replaced the name for the same plant as in Slavic earlier in history.

Fermented cereal flour (generally millet) drinks have been produced by native Anatolians and Mesopotamians since the 9th or 8th millennia BC, and Xenophon mentioned in the 4th century BC how the locals preserved and cooled the preparations in earthen pots that were buried. There are references mentioning boza-like "fermented (ground) millet drink" in Akkadian and Sumerian texts; the beverage is said to be respectively arsikku and ar-zig. In the 10th century that the drink was called Boza and became common amongst Central Asian Turkic peoples. Later it spread to the Caucasus and the Balkans. It enjoyed its golden age under the Ottomans, and boza making became one of the principal trades in towns and cities.

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