One Bottle One Drink – Norwegian Wood

Before I was preparing the article on the Linie Paloma, I was made aware that it was a long time since I last featured aquavit on the blog. To change that, I mixed up Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Norwegian Wood.

It must have been more ten years ago when I first encountered the Norwegian Wood. I instantly wrote it down to mix it up later. However, I cannot remember that I did before. Conveniently, it also is the first time I bought the original Laird’s Bottle in Bond applejack.

From 2009

Jeffrey Morgenthaler created the drink back in 2009. As the story goes, he was pressured by a sales rep to come up with an aquavit cocktail on the spot. The result was quite the tasty cocktail. Yet, it took four runs to land at the recipe. A few customers that day mentioned that this probably was the best cocktail Jeffrey had created so far.

Slight variation

I chose the Linie aquavit here, since it is a slightly aged version. Apart from that, I only had Chartreuse M.O.F.S. instead of the yellow version. The former is more complex and refined.

The Norwegian Wood starts spirit forward with caraway notes. A slight aged apple brandy flavour develops after a while. Next, the spicy and herbal notes from the Chartreuse emerge. All in all, the cocktail is quite powerful, but showcases how to pair intense flavours with each other.