I wanted to let you know that your recipe is really nothing like Gatorade.

It’s not the sugar in Gatorade that improves performance or hydration, it’s actually a combination of processed sugars, water and carbohydrates. Important ingredients include sucrose and potassium.

The amount of sugar in this recipe can be bad for you. Off the shelf granular or baker’s sugar is not the same as sucrose syrup and does not provide the same benefits. That is why sports drinks such as Lucozade and Gatorade contain processed syrups especially suited for the purpose for which they are included rather than sugar.

Sekanjabin, is a drink that originated (the argument continues between people who care about exact dates and origins) in the Middle East and was documented in the tenth century in Persia and travelled from there due to the crusades to Europe. Sekanjibin is still drunk in the Middle east, usually very cold for refreshment and during certain holidays, or hot (in the case of lemon sekinjabin and some others) to comfort one during illness, similar to the our use of hot lemon tea.

Basic recipes consist of vinegar, water, sugar (or sugar substitute, my friend is diabetic and makes hers with whatever fake sugar she has around and loves it) and whatever you want to use to flavor it (generally you let any herbs steep in the solution while it is coolin, gentler to the herbs so you don’t get a burned flavor in the background, although stuff like lemon juice we like to squeeze in while it is boiling). You heat this solution to make it blend and then cool it (with any herbs you used steeping, remember?), strain the herbs once cool and stick it in a bottle for storage and keep it on a shelf.

The consistency is thick and syrupy as it is basically concentrated gatorade. When you want to drink it you pour a little bit of the syrup into a glass, plastic bottle, whatever, and add water to taste. I prefer mine a bit more watery than my friends because the more one uses the sweeter it gets and on ice if I have it. We camp in humid August weather of PA and it got over 100F this year. However, with this stuff you won’t dehydrate even with the 5-10 mi of hiking a day and hours and hours spent sweating in the sun on the archery range.

Great stuff! Play with how much water you want, play with what flavors you like (I made a fake sugar lime sekinjibin for my diabetic friend, a hardcore tequilla drinker once she found out that it is ok to drink tequilla as a diabetic and she loves to mix it! We have also done a pomegranite sekinjibin (some liked it, I hated it as it reminded me of robutussin) a lavender sekinjibin, yum, and always have some mint, rosemary and thyme lying around the house) and give it some time, for some people it is a bit of an acquired taste for others, like me, I was hooked on my second sip.

Basic Sekanjabin Recipe, Persian Style
4 cups sugar (you can use less if you like or even sugar substitute. Remember though that this make a concentrate and you use only a tsp-tbls for an entire glass of water, dependant upon how strong and sweet you like it to taste)
2 1/2 cups water
1 cup vinegar (Red Wine works best) (we usually use cider but have also used white and a variety of random other stuff, play with it what do you think would taste good?)
Lots of fresh mint or Lemon Balm (dried will do)(we also like to do a thyme or a rosemary. At many events rosemary and thyme are very popular. Once again play with it!)

Bring the water and sugar to a boil. Add the vinegar and reduce the heat to simmer for 20 minutes or so. Remove from heat and insert sprigs of mint into the pan.

To serve, cut with water to taste (a little grated cucumber can be added.)

Sekinjibin Recipes on the web
(scroll down to the sekinjibin section, there are quite a few different websites listed)

another basic recipe with a pic and some modern history

this is a great site. it is basically a blog with more of the period conscious individualls sharing ideas and asking eachother quesitons…. great recipes and a large variety of styles!

Just google it….. about 10K sites come up.

Give it a try. If you aren’t sure, play with it a bit and try again. I have yet to meet someone who hated every sikanjibin. I didn’t do a price check on how much it costs but on my tight budget there is always room for the ingredients considering how long a bottle lasts us. We made 2 bottles for our camp this summer of 40 people and still had enough for 5 more glasses in the bottle when we broke camp 2 weeks later. Let me know how you like it!

Thanks,
SJ