Norwegian Wood cocktail recipe

Norway via Iceland, or the other way around

Continuing with my Icelandic theme for the week I present... a cocktail that's not from Iceland or in any way Icelandic. However, this delightful and subtly fruity cocktail features aquavit as the primary spirit and as you know from my previous post, brennivín is the Icelandic version of aquavit.

The original cocktail was invented by famous cocktail creator, writer and historian Jeffrey Morgenthaler whose books I must admit I have yet to read, but that's an old man eye problem more than anything. However, his name has popped up many times in my ongoing online research and I have read more than a few articles by and about him. In any case, the original cocktail features aquavit as a split-base with applejack (a type of apple brandy) but does not specify which type or brand. I would assume by the name that Linie was used since it is the main brand from Norway, which appears to be the origin of the spirit as having first been referenced in a letter between a Norwegian nobleman and the last archbishop of Norway in 1531. That's some legit old-school shit. Applejack also has a long history but not nearly as old and it's New World so not the same thing. More on that in a future post.

2 brands of brennivín — Two brands of brennivín

Okay, so because I'm an unapologetic Icelandophile I use brennivín, and as I learned recently, there is more than one brand of brennivín, which I was unaware of until earlier this year. While at the airport on the way home in the duty-free shop I saw that there were several choices available. The original traditional brand labeled simply "Brennivín" is readily available in the US, so I bought a few of the others. One of the interesting bits of history is that back in the 1930s when Iceland began producing its own brand of brennivín the label was strictly required to be all black with a white skull to make everyone consider it bad for you. Naturally it had the opposite effect and became known as "black death" and is essentially the national drink. Read more on Wikipedia or on my recent post for the Midnight Sun cocktail so I don't have to explain it all to you again. Anyway, I currently have two versions on hand, and as you can tell the more modern boutique version has the coolest fucking label ever, so naturally I chose that one. Despite the name (helvíti means "hell") it was surprisingly clean and mild compared to the original. I highly recommend trying both (naturally).

So here it is. A stirred drink for a change. Boozy but tasty and even a bit fruity.

Norwegian Wood

1 oz aquavit (brennivín)
1 oz applejack
¾ oz sweet vermouth
¼ oz Yellow Chartreuse
1 dash Angostura bitters
twist of lemon peel as garnish

Stir with ice, strain and serve up in a coupe. Squeeze lemon peel and cut it to look nice hanging off the side off the glass. Seriously, make this one look classy for a change!