Kumis

Kumis

A bottle and glass of kumis
Type	Dairy product
Main ingredients	Mare's milk

Kumis (also spelled kumiss or koumiss or kumys, see other transliterations and cognate words below under terminology and etymology - Kazakh: Кымыз, kymyz) is a fermented dairy product traditionally made from mare's milk. The drink remains important to the peoples of the Central Asian steppes, of Huno-Bulgar, Turkic and Mongol origin: Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Yakuts. Kumis is also a popular drink in Colombia and other parts of Latin America, where it is made of cow's milk.

Kumis is a dairy product similar to kefir, but is produced from a liquid starter culture, in contrast to the solid kefir "grains". Because mare's milk contains more sugars than cow's or goat's milk, when fermented, kumis has a higher, though still mild, alcohol content compared to kefir.

Even in the areas of the world where kumis is popular today, mare's milk remains a very limited commodity. Industrial-scale production, therefore, generally uses cow's milk, which is richer in fat and protein, but lower in lactose than the milk from a horse. Before fermentation, the cow's milk is fortified in one of several ways. Sucrose may be added to allow a comparable fermentation. Another technique adds modified whey to better approximate the composition of mare's milk.