Home / Kymyz
Ak Bee kymyz
Ak bee means "white mare". Our kymyz comes from Chongtor mares grazing the summer pastures of the Talas Alatau, milked by the families who herd them, and is bottled in Talas the next morning.
The kymyz season runs from May to September
Ak Bee kymyz is bottled only while the mares are on the summer pastures.
From the jayloo
Only as much as the mares give
A mare gives milk for kymyz only while she is suckling her foal. From May, when the herds go up to the summer pastures, the foals are tethered near the yurts and the mares are milked every two hours or so, six or seven times a day, by the 212 herding families who work with us.
The milk goes into a starter from the day before and is stirred with a wooden plunger, as it has always been, then carried down in cooled churns to our collection point at the foot of the pastures. In Talas we pasteurize it gently, let it finish fermenting and bottle it in glass.
When the herds come down in September, the season ends. We do not freeze mare's milk or make kymyz from powder, so there is no Ak Bee in winter.
Two kinds
Young and strong
Young kymyz (jash kymyz)
Fermented for about a day. Mild, milky and fizzy, around 1 percent alcohol. This is the kymyz to start with if you are new to it.
- 0.5 L
- 1 L
- about 1% alcohol
Strong kymyz (küchtüü kymyz)
Left for three days, until it is sharp and sour, at up to 2.4 percent alcohol: just under the 2.5 percent at which Iradstandart would class it as an alcoholic drink. The herders' kymyz, drunk from a wooden bowl in the evening.
- 0.5 L
- up to 2.4% alcohol
Kymyz is a fermented drink and contains alcohol. We do not sell it for children, and we ask you not to drink it before driving. Keep it cold and drink it within five days; it gets stronger as it stands.
Kymyz muryndyk
The first bowl of the season
Each year, before the first bottle leaves the Combine, we join the herding families for the kymyz muryndyk on the pastures. An elder gives the bata, the first kymyz is shared among neighbours, and only then does the season begin.
The mares
Chongtor horses
Most of our milk comes from mares of the Chongtor breed, the hardy mountain horse of the high valleys. The families keep the herds; we pay for the milk by the litre and send our vets up with the collection trucks.
Since the 1970s
From sanatorium to supermarket
The Combine first made kymyz for the state sanatoriums, which used it in their cures for the lungs and the stomach. The Ak Bee name and the glass bottle came in 2009. Today it is on the shelves in Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl.
Herding families
Milk your mares for Ak Bee
We sign summer contracts with herding families every April. We pay 9.80 som a litre for mare's milk in 2026, collect daily from the foot of the pastures, lend cooled churns and settle every ten days.