Icelandic, Scandinavia, Viking Alcohols

[California_Shiner]

Im looking fo any Icelandic, Scandinavia, Viking Alcohol recipes out of a natural spirt.
Ostara Feast is coming in April 17th,18th and 19th.
Not real interested in Meads. Thats covered allready.

[maoule]

Try wineo"s plain ol sugar mash.

[schnell]

Flavour a strong neutral spirit with caraway and/or dill. Then age it a bit and you'll have an akavit that would be recognized throughout northern europe.

If you need it in two weeks for your party try this.
Flavor the spirit with the herbs and produce a tincture. Make sure that it's not to strong and concentrated, but still is drinkable. Use an amount of herbs similar to what you'd use in a salad for instance (ie: it's hard to drink it stronger than you can eat it).
Crush them up and intinct. Then strain out the herbs after a day or so. Age this spirit on enough toasted wood chips to almost cover the bottom in a fairly small container, such as a 1 liter or quart mason jar. Shake daily to keep it agitated. Open it daily to vent. Just before your special event decant it and dilute it, if need be, to 40%.

Drink small glasses with food. I usually have akavit with sardines and/or cheese on crackers. When I go hunting with friends I usually bust out such snacks as landjaeger sausage, dill cheese, peppers and match them with a taste of akavit to cleanse the palate and aid digestion.

Smorgasbord.

[punkin]

I loved the akavit in Sweden and Norway when i was there years ago.

The getting out the bottle with lunch and dinner for two or three shots during the meal is a great addition to digestion.

Are caraway and dill the two main players Schnell?

And is neutral the best spirit to use?

Gunna have a go at this if i get the right info.

[California_Shiner]

Thank you schnell,
Thats what I was looking for, akavit.
I read it somwhere, Just could'nt remember where.
I have less than 2 weeks now. Bummer.
Hopefully I can pull it off.
Thanks again.
Bye the way, do you have the full recipe?

[Nykter]

Its Akvavit, at least in Swedish, from Latin "Aqua vitae", meaning "water of life" (just like whiskey)
Wikipedia has an entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akvavit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow Interestingly, the English entry is double the size of the one in the Swedish wikipedia.

See also snaps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snaps" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A4nnvin" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow, the Swedish grain, potatoe or neutral vodka.

[N0N4M3]

I'm from Iceland and we have Brennivín here, translates to burning wine. I'd like to think that the word relates to the burning part of distillation rather than the burning sensation of the wine.
Our Brennivín is pretty much just vodka and its flavored with what we call Kúmen I believe its called Caraway in english.
So I'd go for a ákavít or a spirit flavored with some herbs that grow in the area.

[schnell]

Nykter, thanks for the spelling correction, my typing is sloppy...

I just got a bottle of Aalborg's Jubilaeums Akvavit out of the freezer to reaquaint myself. Got a dram in me to help read the label. They used both dill and coriander.

They also cheated and used caramel for coloring. But I still like it!

[schnell]

NON4M3- my wife and I have been wanting to visit Iceland for awhile. What else do you have to drink up there?

I'm really curious about that geothermal distillery, Reyka. Do you see it on sale there, or is it an export gimick?

[N0N4M3]

Sorry for the late answer.

We have plenty more to drink here, our brewing companys mostly make light pilsener type beers but a few micro brewerys have been popping up lately (which I find amazing, we only have a population of about 300.000).
I'll have to reccomend Thule which is my favourite lager beer made by the company Viking, its a nicely hopped lager beer.
My other two favourite beers are Kaldi & Skjálfti made by Ölvisholt brewery.
There are some vodka flavored with icelandic candies ... tópas & ópal around... but I dont like that crap... I believe Quintin tarantino talked to Jay leno about it on his show.. try searching for it on youtube.com

Now about Reyka vodka, in the begginning of the distillation the liquids are heated up with geothermal water (we icelanders use it to heat up our homes) then they use electricity which is made by ... I believe its called boreholes or something like that, holes that are drilled into the ground so that steam goes through turbines and create electricity... so Reyka vodka is probably the only "green" vodka around :]
Then they filter it through lava... I find that part preeeetty weird... probably just a publicity stunt

Our water from the tap is cleaner than the crap people get in bottles, our hot water from the tap is about 80°C
I'm almost done making my vacuum still, I just have a little stainless welding left and it'll be done.. I'll have to lower the temperature down to about 40°C by blending the hot and cold water