Being 20 years way out in the fringes of what long-retired WLS-TV7 weatherman John Coleman referred to as "the super boonies", I miss Ethiopian food, especially the cloudy, golden, semisweet elixir called t'ej. Homemade in the places that serve it, it varies from sweet and about 5% abv, to a dryish 8-10% abv.
It's ingredients are simple: warmed, hopefully organic raw honey, mixed thoroughly with water (typically 3-5 parts honey to 1 part water ratio); gesho twigs, which is a native African bush; the twigs performing the roll assumed by hops in beer- bittering the brew- while also enabling native yeasts on the gesho to inoculate the t'ej, causing a vigorous fermentation.... given a warm place to ferment. And, time. Perhaps weeks if all goes alright. Longer if you're trying this at home in a glass carboy, sitting on your floor, in Winter.
It is normally served cold while still in a bubbly state: cloudy, delicious, and might I say, intoxicating? Yes, I'll say that.
All that said, what Ethiopian food purveyor currently serves the finest t'ej in the city?