Drinking in danger with kykeon

We’re back in Eleusis, but not ancient Eleusis. Only back to 2015, when I first began exploring the rites of Elysium and how the mysteries played a role in my story, an earlier version of Tales of the Mistress.

If you like mystery and danger, I implore you. The time is now to get, to carve, break off, forage for, pilfer or secure in whatever manner besieges you, your most intriguing stirring stick. Make it ready and come along with me.

Ok, but what are we stirring?

Kykeon. Immortality, and Dr. Reid.

So….what are you waiting for?! Let’s go. Plunge headfirst, first Kykeon.

To make it we have to get scratchy in the field as we pick the grain.

Then, we’ll wipe away sweat and add the grains to a jar with water.

Shake off most of the water, repeat twice daily, until the grain sprouts.

Once it sprouts, add more water and ferment it. Mixing this fermented liquid, into an elixir, a drink.

Recipe below.

So far so good. This drink, called kykeon, or sometimes rejuvelac, is what could lead us to Immortality.

But how? The Immortality Key, an insanely full and teeming book by Brian C. Muraresku, explores some of the long held secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Similar to what the ancients drank, these ancient potions, convinced herbs and certain mushrooms into fermenting and bubbling, and with wine, increased their medicinal properties closer to conviviality.  And immortality. But how?

“Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites.”

Kykeon, is Greek and means to stir or to mix. It’s connected to ancient rites of Persephone and Demeter at Eleusis. This ceremony held a lot of je nais se quois of danger, intrigue, and elusive preparations. The preparations of Kykeon were shrouded in secrecy and participants were sworn under penalty of death to not reveal their participation in such symposiums. What was the purpose?

The mere imbibing of possibly transportive substances?

No.

To bring you close enough to see what death was, and how it was.

Just another stage of life. And nothing to fear.

Enter Dr. Reid. Years ago, while working on an earlier version of Tales of the Mistress - I mentioned this to her. My friend and one-time neighbor, Dr. Colbey Emmerson Reid, is now Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Fashion Studies at Colombia College Chicago.

I wanted to share what I was learning, and writing.

Dr. Reid, and her co-author, Shannon McRae, wrote an article about “the fusion of religious feeling with exotic drinks.” Read the abstract: Fallen Angel: The Consumption of Religion in American Cocktail Culture that was published in Material Religions: The Journal of Art, Objects, and Belief.  

We whispered about ancient Greece and Elysium and wanted to do a spring-time festival of women friends starting in our underground wine cellar and coming up from the earth into the light and slender, green, oniony earth. We talked more and made some Tiki cocktails. (Read the abstract above!)

Then, Dr. Reid and I went into my kitchen to collect Kykeon from the mists, and into - clink clink - our glasses. 

Grab your stirring stick.

Make kykeon. Stir these drinks.

Become immortal.

You’re among friends. Like Brian Muraresku. And Dr. Reid.

You’ll never know unless you try.

Kykeon Cocktail with Mint and Tarragon

The recipes take a few steps and days to create, so before you cocktail, sprout the grain and then ferment the resulting sprouted grain into a fizzy elixir, and then make your Kykeon cocktail.  

Sprouting the grain.

In a 1 quart jar place 1/2 cup of grain and cover with water. Soak for 12 hours and rinse and drain, turning the jar on its side. Keep up this rinsing and draining and turning for about 3 days or until you see the white sprout emerge. When the sprout is the same size as the grain itself, its ready to make into the fermented grain water.  

Place a handful of the sprouted grain in another clean quart jar, and fill with water. Cover with either another screened sprouting lid or a rubber-banded piece of cheesecloth, and let sit at room temperature. The fermentation will benefit from the wild yeasts in your kitchen, which will be there in abundance if you are a bread baker! In winter it can take some time to ferment, but in warmer days it can happen in as little as 6-8 hours. I myself have never had any problems with sprouting and food-borne illness, but do take precautions - this is not the kind of danger you should be feeling when creating this cocktail!

(Use the rest of the sprouted grain in another recipe. As a note, the sprouted grain can be used t make a wonderful salad with goat cheese.)

Kykeon Cocktails

Fermented Red Fife Water with Mint and Tarragon

For this recipe you can use whole wheat berries, hulled barley, or hull-less barley, all of which are whole grains still containing the germ. Near me is a local farm and mill in Alamance County who grow heritage and modern grains and is only 16 miles away. Red Tail Grains is available on-line or at the Carrboro or Durham Farmer’s Market or Left Bank Butchery in Saxapahaw, NC. 

makes about 1 quart of fermented wheat, red fife variety, water

1 cup red fife wheat, sprouted

8 cups water

1 cup fresh yellow flowering tarragon

1 bunch fresh mint

Japanese buckwheat honey, to taste

Strain the water from the grain into a large bowl. Reserve the sprouted wheat for another use. 

Put the tarragon and mint in the mortar and pestle. Bruise the mint and tarragon leaves by mashing them with wooden spoon or a cocktail muddler. This will bring out the flavorful herb oils. Put the bruised leaves in the wheat water, pushing them under as best you can and allow it to steep for about five minutes. Taste and if you want it the herb flavor to be stronger, let the leaves steep longer.

Strain the wheat water into a pitcher, and add Japanese buckwheat honey to taste, stirring until it dissolves completely. then chill in the refrigerator for several hours until completely cold. 

Serve over ice, with a yellow tarragon flower to garnish.

Kykeon with Orange and Bay Leaves

makes about 1 quart

Be sure that your lavender, fennel, oranges and lemons are all organic. The raw sugar gives a different flavor than the honey in the previous cocktail. Save the sprouted wheat for another use in a salad or in bread.

1 cup red fife wheat, sprouted and covered with 8 cups water

6 oranges

2 lemons

1 tablespoon raw sugar

1 sprig flowering lavender

2 fronds of fresh fennel

3 bay leaves

Use a vegetable peeler to thinly peel just the colored part of the rind from three of the oranges and one of the lemons. Please, no white pith, as it's bitter. If you find some strips of rind with pith, scrape it off with a knife. Next, juice all of the fruit.

Muddle the lavender and fennel and bay leaves.

Strain the fermented barley water into a pitcher. Add the citrus rinds and the fruit juice, and the muddled herbs to the pitcher and stir. Taste the barley water to see if it needs any sugar. depending on how sweet your oranges are, it may not need additional sweetening.

Add raw sugar to taste and stir with a long spoon until it is completely dissolved. Chill the pitcher in the refrigerator for several hours until it is completely cold.

Serve over ice accompanied by a slice of orange.

Dr. Colbey Emmerson Reid creating a Kykeon cocktail

Dr. Colbey Emmerson Reid stirring up a kykeon cocktail.

tearing up tarragon

kykeon with tarragon flowers