Growing up on a fruit farm I definitely drank a lot of kompot in my life! Don’t confuse kompot juice with compote, which is a stewed fruit dessert. Kompot is popular in most Eastern European countries. According to Wikipedia, ‘Kompot is a non-alcoholic clear juice obtained by cooking fruit in a large volume of water, like strawberries, apricots, peaches, apples, rhubarb, gooseberries, or sour cherries’. And that is exactly true!

Kompot was extremely popular until the 80’s. Then it got overturned by dizzy sodas and fruit juices. Luckily, with a wave of nostalgia and a trend towards healthy living, kompot has returned to the Polish tables. You can still order it in Milk bars, but now it also makes regular appearances in hip bars & restaurants.

Image by Monika Schröder from Pixabay

I remember making it with my mother. My brother and myself loved helping in the kitchen and I still remember to this day how we made our first kompot all by ourselves! Our parents worked hard and we wanted to do something nice for them. We were home alone (I know, nowadays it would never happen) and only few years old! We got probably about 20 jars ready, went to pick cherries from the orchard and made the kompot! Adding sugar and boiling water (I still don’t know how we didn’t get burned!) and everything was ready! My parents were of course happy but horrified that we decided to do it ourselves.

You can use almost any fruit you want! My favorites were strawberry, cherry and peach!

Image by Alexey Marcov from Pixabay

There are so many ways to make it. It all depends on the fruit you have on hand. Your kompot will surely taste different than the one I make! You do add sugar to it – but it is definitely less sugar than in a soda and everything else is so fresh and natural! You can use the fruit from the jar in desserts as toppings! Yummy!

We always stored jars (słoiki, słoik – singular) in the basement and we had plenty of kompot for long winter months! In summer, kompot served as a cold, refreshing drink. In winter, it’s offered warm – often with some extra spices and dried fruit.

You can also use dried fruit (suszone owoce) to make kompot, although my favorite is definitely the one made from fresh fruit (świerze owoce). Additional sweeteners (sugar, honey) are optional, but I find that sweeter fruit need hardly need any at all.

You can google so many recipes on how to make it! If you have your favorite one, please share it with us here in comments below!