“Skål!” is the ubiquitous Scandinavian word for cheers. In this blog post, find out the origin of the word and why when you say skål you are truly drinking like a Viking!

This recipe is a collaboration between Svöl and Ben Foster, chef and founder of K-Bröd, a Swedish kitchen and web shop that makes artisan provisions using Nordic techniques.

In this post we cover the emergence of aquavit (and genever and gin) as individual categories. Aquavit came to be in the early/mid-1500s, born of the hodgepodge of local botanicals used to infuse early booze to cover its harsh taste. Like most spirit applications before, it was largely medicinal at first.

Did you know aquavit is made the same way as gin? Botanicals are added to a base spirit and re-distilled. But why and when did distillers start to do that? Read on to learn how distillation came to Europe, and why botanical flavoring was really an inevitability.