Before cola, and even before refrigeration, there was sherbet. And in the UAE, where the sunshine is as much a defining feature as the skyline, it has never really been forgotten.
“In our home, qamardeen appears on the table when the sun gets hotter,” says Hafsa Asaad, a homemaker from Dubai. “My mother made the drink from dried apricot paste, as did my grandmother. And then there's jallab, grape molasses and rose water with pine nuts floating on top. These are our traditional drinks; no cola comes close.”
Like hers, many households in the UAE stock laban, the salted buttermilk drink as ubiquitous in supermarkets as it is on family tables. In Turkey, it’s replaced by ayran, a cold, yogurt-based beverage seasoned with mint leaves. Egypt, meanwhile, has its own beloved cold brew: karkadeh, made with dried hibiscus petals steeped until the water turns deep red and served chilled.
“These drinks have always been here,” Asaad says. “We just sometimes forget to choose them.”
It is a lapse Nawal Nasrallah, an Iraqi food historian and writer, acknowledges but adds: “I do not think this rich beverage heritage will go out of style any time soon.” Indeed, in the souqs and marketplaces of Iraq, vendors still sell sherbet zibeeb, a raisin-based cooler, alongside sherbet rumman, made from pomegranates, their terracotta pitchers sweating in the afternoon heat.
“Sodas and commercial drinks have their place in modern life, but they have never truly replaced our traditional staples – natural, nourishing and affordable alternatives that remain timeless,” adds Nasrallah.
And as temperatures climb across the globe, breaking records in Europe, the UK, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula, that timelessness is starting to feel urgent rather than merely nostalgic.
West Asia has always known heat – and it has always known how to handle it. Apart from hibiscus juice and yogurt-based coolers, Egyptians also rely on tamar Hind, a deeply cooling sweet-sour tamarind drink. In Iraq, shineena, a chilled, salted, frothy yoghurt drink, rehydrates instantly. Sherbet loomi Basra, brewed from dried limes and served over ice, is sharp but reviving.
One drink that Nasrallah worries may be fading is sakanjabeen, a vinegar and sugar syrup that medieval physician Ibn Sina himself described in his Canon of Medicine, where he detailed its preparation with the precision of a scientist. It can be tweaked with aniseed to clear phlegm, or with cardamom to ease flatulence.
“It is becoming almost a memory,” Nasrallah says, “A pity given its merits. It is a fantastic thirst-quencher and potent digestive tonic.”
Travel East, and the same philosophy unfolds across an astonishing breadth of ingredients and geography. In India, the repertoire of summer drinks is less a list, more a living archive, one shaped by altitude, coastline, soil and monsoon patterns.
“India's cooling drinks developed as a direct response to the climate and available ingredients,” says Dipali Khandelwal from Jaipur, founder of The Kindness Meal, a platform dedicated to preserving India's disappearing food cultures. “People used what grew around them to stay hydrated.”
In the hot, dry interior, that meant refreshing chaas, or spiced buttermilk, and high-protein sattu made from chickpea flour. Along the western coast, it meant tangy kokum sherbet, made from the kokum fruit.
In Bengal, you have gondhoraj ghol, buttermilk spiked with fragrant king lime. In Kashmir, babri beol is made with sweet basil seeds. In the Himalayan foothills, the vivid pink buransh sherbet is pressed from rhododendron flowers.
In Gujarat, the summer begins in earnest as early as March and doesn't relent until the end of the year. Here, chaas, thin spiced buttermilk seasoned with cumin and sometimes mint, is a daily ritual. In Kutch, where temperatures brush 50°C, it's known as “Kutchi beer” and is drunk steadily through the day.
Chef Sunil Jajoria, who grew up in the desert state of Rajasthan and now works at Anantara Jewel Bagh Jaipur, knows this intimately. “For me, drinks like jal jeera, bael sherbet, khus and sattu aren't just refreshments; they're a part of everyday life,” he says. “If I had to choose one standout, it would always be chaas. It's light, refreshing, aids digestion and works beautifully as a natural electrolyte in extreme heat.”
In his kitchen, chef Jajoria gives these classics a personal signature: pudina chaas with cooling mint; bhuni kairi ki chaach with smoked raw mango and tarbooj shikanji, or watermelon lemonade.
Raw mango is also the star of another coastal drink in India: aam panna. In Maharashtra and Goa, boiled raw mango pulp is blended with sugar or jaggery, then seasoned with cumin and black salt to create a tangy, thirst-quenching summer cooler.
“Nothing says Mumbai summer like a chilled glass of panna after stepping in from the heat,” says Mumbai resident Sheetal Deshpande. “Every Maharashtrian household has its own version, but for most of us, aam panna tastes like childhood holidays and relief from the brutal heat of May.”
The regional variations are remarkable in their specificity. Khus sherbet, made from vetiver roots, carries an earthy aroma. In Bihar, sattu sharbat is protein-rich and deeply sustaining. Odisha's bela panna works with wood apple pulp. In Punjab, chabeel, a rose-tinted milk drink, is served freely outside gurdwaras to anyone who passes.
Nannari sharbat, derived from Indian sarsaparilla root, has been trusted by Ayurvedic practitioners for generations in Telangana. And in Tamil Nadu, jigarthanda, which translates into “cool heart” in Urdu, combines milk, ice cream and natural gums, and sits between drink and dessert.
Khandelwal places all of this in a wider frame: “Historically, these drinks were never seen as just food or just medicine. They were a natural blend of both, everyday practices that combined nourishment, healing and climate adaptation into one simple habit.”
Alongside fruits and grains, cooling resins such as gond katira (edible gum) and seeds such as sabja (sweet basil) were incorporated for their water-retaining properties. “These beverages are shaped by seasonality and agriculture, using ingredients that naturally appear during peak heat, making them practical, local solutions to survive summer.”
But do they actually work? Clinical nutritionist Amita Gadre, author of What, How Much and How to Eat, begins by correcting a common misconception. “I'd push back on the word 'cooling' here. From a nutrition science standpoint, no drink directly lowers body temperature. The body regulates its own temperature through sweating and circulation.” What these drinks can do is something more specific: they hydrate efficiently, and they replace what perspiring takes away.
“When you sweat, you lose water and electrolytes, primarily sodium and potassium. A drink that replaces both is genuinely useful,” adds Gadre.
She explains that modern sodas do the opposite: their high sugar content raises osmolality, forcing the gut to dilute the drink before it can absorb it, slowing rehydration precisely when the body needs it most.
“Drinks like chaas, sattu sharbat or kokum water with a pinch of salt are naturally low in sugar, contain some sodium and potassium, and are absorbed efficiently.” Yoghurt and buttermilk, she notes, are fermented and therefore easier to digest; jaggery retains trace minerals and, mixed with water and salt, functions as a basic oral rehydration solution. Herbs like mint create a sensation of coolness through receptor activation – sensory, not physiological, but real nonetheless.
“The value of these drinks is practical, not mystical,” she concludes. “They were developed in hot climates, and many of them align well with what basic rehydration science recommends.”
What emerges – from shineena in Baghdad and jigarthanda in Madurai, to karkadeh in Cairo and buransh sherbet in the Kumaon hills – is not just a list of drinks, but a showcase of human ingenuity operating under heat.
Passed down through households, street stalls, cookbooks and community kitchens, they are, as Khandelwal puts it, “vernacular technologies of survival”.
