_________________________________________

UNTIL VERY recently, the centuries-old spirit aquavit was looking every bit its age. Its once-loyal Scandinavian consumers, traditionally enthusiastic meal-time gluggers of this botanical spirit, were dwindling. Aquavit was creaking under the weight of historical decline as producers sat and watched while generation after generation grew more distant and their product less relevant. At Christmas, Easter and national bank holidays, aquavit is still a fixture on the cold table, but for younger Scandinavians aquavit has increasingly been left there – to history and tradition, to be revisited with thirsty grandmothers two or three times a year.

“Being a traditional spirit, the older generation drink aquavit a lot, and while the younger cherish drinking aquavit on traditional occasions, their drinking frequency is much lower,” says Claus Toftkjær, marketing director of Arcus, the Norwegian company which is the largest aquavit producer in the world. “The most aquavit consumed is in Denmark, then Norway and Sweden,” says Toftkjær. “By volume Denmark is the biggest in the world but it’s declining.” Currently 9.9m litres are sold globally – down from 10.4m litres in 2010 – according to Arcus, which accounts for just over half of global volumes. Two thirds are sold in the Nordics.

This predicament – dwindling domestic sales, small export footprint – is where many regional spirits have found themselves as they contend with the inexorable march of global brands and the homogenisation of consumer behaviour. If your own people stop buying your spirit it can be a fatal blow. But antidotes exist to the slow-release poison of decline.

Like a couple of plump salmon leaping into aquavit’s lap, two recent trends have provided a welcome boon. The first is food. The New Nordic food movement, lead by René Redzepi’s Noma and contemporaries, put Nordic ingredients back on the table. It was never more than a minority that were rushing out to eat monkfish liver, moss and fermented peas, but some years on, Scandinavian ingredients and food culture are much more widely enjoyed – locally and globally. Aquavit’s suitability to Nordic cuisine has brought it back into the foodie’s thinking, but with traditional packaging and drinking practices (as a shot) the category still felt a little traditional next to the gastronomic innovation of the best restaurants of the world. Aquavit’s reputation remained one rooted in the past, but not for long, as something else was happening. The move towards crafted products, authenticity, localness and the rediscovery of distilling traditions around the world would also play into aquavit’s hands. The winds were changing, but one more gust was needed to create the perfect storm.

REGIONALITY AND DIVERSITY

Enter the bartenders: Scandinavia’s hipstery-hirsute trendsetters might have arrived a little late to the aquavit party but, slowly, they are now rediscovering their distilling heritage and starting to celebrate their spirit’s regionality and diversity. Now in top cocktail bars in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, aquavit is back on the back bar and getting back on track. The after-shift drink of a Nordic bartender is now commonly a beer and a shot of aquavit.

Norwegian bartender Monica Berg, widely considered one of the category’s leading advocates, says pockets of international interest in aquavit were also a factor in changing minds at home. “I would say international interest was a big contributor to the recent popularity of aquavit in the Nordics. Ten to 15 years ago, almost no one in the Nordics (including the producers) would ever think of using aquavit in cocktails. Yet, the likes of Robert Hess, Dave Wondrich and Toby Checcini were all mixing with it.”

That was the first wave but, along with Berg, industry leaders in the UK and the US now regularly use the spirit. “Bartenders such as Leo Robitschek of the Nomad, Micah Melton of Aviary and Ryan Chetiyawardana of Dandelyan are all proof that you can make some of the most delicious aquavit cocktails without having the cultural connection – they have been drawn to the category for the sake of its flavour. For bartenders without the burden of traditions, I think aquavit is even more fascinating, as it has the botanical heart of a gin but with the warmth and length of brown spirits. I have the cultural connection, so this makes me extremely happy, as aquavit truly is one of my great loves.”

So, by the sum of many factors, aquavit is becoming relevant again. It’s not likely to be competing with whisky and vodka in mainstream bars and supermarkets in export markets any time soon, but it’s growing from a tiny export base to something more significant. All we need now is for someone to call aquavit the next big thing.

“It is the next big thing,” says Jon Anders Borchgrevink Fjeldsrud who looks after Amathus’s Nordic portfolio in the UK, presumably high off-sales growth that has now reached triple digits in the UK. But Fjeldsrud knows a trend when he sees one – agave spirits are his other department at Amathus and look how that blew up. “It’s all down to the flavour-curious bartender,” he says. “In a cocktail aquavit works extremely well, particularly as a modifier.” His view is shared elsewhere: “I think of aquavit as modifying flavour in cocktails rather than a base flavour,” says Geoffrey Canilao, a New Yorker who emigrated to Copenhagen some years ago and now runs Balderdash. Berg refers to aquavit as her “seasoning” and says “for that there is no substitute”.

Like most niche spirits starting to find traction, there’s not that much information around for the curious bartender. Counter-intuitively, that is the attraction. “It’s not that easy to get into aquavit – which is part of the appeal,” says Matt Hastings of Fluid Movement, the London-based bar and consultancy firm. “It’s my jam. I love caraway for a start, so it’s quite an obvious go-to for me. Because there was no material, I had to try even harder to learn about it, which is fun. It appeals because there’s a good variation of styles and aquavit isn’t gimmicky (cough, gin, cough).”

No one is saying aquavit is the next gin, but it’s undeniable that bartenders once drawn by gin seem to be interested in aquavit – the use of botanicals being the major reason. But with maturation also a factor, there is arguably more variety in aquavit. Hastings says there is a lot of crossover of styles as new producers enter the market and the likes of Arcus and Altia launch products, but he has a framework by which he understands the various styles. “Norwegian aquavit is normally aged with a high caraway and fennel content, rich/sweet and relatively heavy. Swedish is unaged, light, floral with more dill and slightly savoury. Danish is medium to rich, very herbal and spicy, and unaged.” With so much diversity, you can see why he’s excited.

EXPORT SALES

Right now, the production of aquavit is consolidated mainly between two companies – Arcus and Altia – with a smattering of smaller brands, not many of which have meaningful export sales. But Arcus is bent on exploiting the new opportunities domestically and internationally. “With the hipster movement, there’s a surge back to authenticity, so between the ages of 18 and 25 we see a surge of relevance for aquavit,” says Toftkjær. Currently 38% of Arcus’s volumes are international, which is slightly skewed as Germany has a tradition of drinking the spirit and is the largest export market. But within three years Arcus plans for half its volumes to be sold outside Scandinavia. “We have every potential for huge growth internationally,” says Toftkjær. The boat-aged Linie aquavit is a focus, but Opland has been repackaged and repositioned and is now destined for export markets. Allied to that, the Finland-based, Nordic-wide company Altia opened a new aquavit distillery in Sweden to produce its flagship O.P. Anderson aquavit and smaller Swedish brands. When you see investments such as these, it’s undeniable that aquavit is moving in the right direction.

But, perhaps most tellingly, Pernod Ricard has re-entered the category. Having sold up its aquavit operation to Arcus in 2012, it’s back this year with Swedish brand Åhus Akvavit. It is a product engineered for its consumers – craft packaging, produced in an area of distilling heritage. “Everything that helps aquavit helps us,” says Toftkjær. “It signals that they too see potential for expansion.”

It might be a step too far to say aquavit will be the next big thing, but let’s just say things haven’t looked this positive for a while. The conditions are there for a revival – it’s now over to the category’s producers to exploit their good fortune and carve a reputation into the landscape that lies a little further from home.