Horilka

Horilka

Nemiroff Honey Pepper horilka
Type	Alcoholic beverage
Place of origin	Ukraine
Region or state	Eastern Europe
Main ingredients	Water, alcohol
Variations	Flavoured vodka, nastoianka
Food energy (per serving)	122 kcal per 50 ml kcal
Media: Horilka

Horilka (Ukrainian: горілка; Belarusian: гарэлка) is a Ukrainian alcoholic beverage.

The word horilka may also be used in a generic sense in the Ukrainian language to mean vodka or other strong spirits and etymologically is similar to the Ukrainian word for 'to burn' - hority. Home-distilled horilka, moonshine, is called samohon (Ukrainian: самогон, lit. 'self-distillated' or 'self-run' - almost identical to the Russian and Polish samogon). Horilka is usually distilled from grain (usually wheat or rye), though it can, less commonly, also be distilled from potatoes,^[1] honey, sugar beets etc. One type of horilka, called pertsivka (Ukrainian: перцівка), is horilka with chili peppers. Historically, outside Ukraine, pertsivka is generally referred to when people speak of horilka, although pertsivka itself is just one type of horilka.

It is believed that horilka was not as strong as today with about 20 percent alcohol by volume (40 proof).^[1][2] However, today nearly all industrially produced horilka is 40 percent (80 proof).