Winter Cocktails of Scandinavia

Scandinavian winter drinking is shaped by two things: the dark and the company. In December, Stockholm gets around six hours of daylight and Tromsø gets none at all. What fills the gap is candlelight, long meals, and a drink that is passed round rather than ordered.

That drink is glögg, and it is less a recipe than an institution.

Glögg, the centre of it all

Glögg is the Nordic mulled wine, and the differences from its continental cousins matter.

It is more heavily spiced, with cardamom doing work that clove and cinnamon do further south. It is sweeter, often noticeably so. It is usually fortified, with a measure of aquavit, vodka or port stirred in, which pushes it well above wine strength. And it is served with raisins and blanched almonds in the glass, eaten with a small spoon as you go.

That last detail is the one visitors find strangest and locals consider non-negotiable. The raisins plump in the hot wine, the almonds soften, and by the bottom of the glass you have effectively had a small pudding.

Glögg

The standard version: red wine with port or aquavit, cardamom, cinnamon, clove and orange peel, served with the raisins and almonds. Twenty-five minutes, most of it steeping. Glögg

Swedish Glögg

Red wine with vodka or aquavit, cardamom, cinnamon, clove and orange peel, steeped for half an hour. Sweden takes glögg most seriously of the three: supermarkets stock a dozen varieties from late October, and glöggfest is a fixture of the office calendar. Swedish Glögg

Norwegian Glögg

Aquavit rather than vodka, which brings caraway and dill into the spice mix and makes a drier, more savoury glass. Norwegian Glögg

Danish Glögg

Akvavit with brown sugar rather than white, giving a darker, richer, more caramel-led drink. Danish gløgg is often served with æbleskiver, the spherical pancakes that appear everywhere in December. Danish Glögg

Alcohol-Free Glögg

Grape and blackcurrant juice with cardamom, cinnamon, clove and orange peel, served with the same raisins and almonds. Not a compromise: it is stocked alongside the alcoholic versions in every Nordic supermarket and drunk by adults who simply prefer it. Alcohol-Free Glögg

Aquavit, the other Nordic winter spirit

Aquavit is distilled from grain or potato and flavoured with caraway or dill, sometimes aged in oak. It is drunk cold, in a small glass, usually with food, and usually with a toast.

The toast matters. Skål is not a formality: the Nordic convention is to make eye contact, drink, and make eye contact again before setting the glass down. At a proper Christmas table it happens repeatedly through the meal.

Aquavit is rarely warmed on its own, but a measure stirred into hot glögg is standard practice, and it is what gives Norwegian and Danish versions their distinctly savoury edge against all that sugar.

The julbord and what is drunk with it

The Christmas table, julbord in Swedish and julefrokost in Danish, is where most Nordic winter drinking actually happens. It runs for hours, moves through cold fish, cold meats, hot dishes and cheese, and each stage has its own drink.

Glögg is served on arrival, before anyone sits down, with gingerbread and blue cheese. Beer and aquavit accompany the herring. Wine appears with the hot courses. Coffee and something stronger close it.

The pattern is worth borrowing even without the food: a warm spiced drink to greet people, something colder and drier with the meal, and one small strong glass at the end.

Julmust, glögg’s non-alcoholic cousin

Worth a mention because it dominates the season in Sweden and almost nobody outside knows it. Julmust is a spiced, malty soft drink that outsells cola in December by a wide margin. It is not a cocktail ingredient and it is not trying to be. It simply demonstrates how completely the Nordic winter has its own drinks calendar.

Making a Nordic winter drink properly

Three things separate a good glögg from a mediocre one.

Steep, do not boil. Twenty-five to thirty minutes at just below a simmer. Boiling drives off the alcohol and turns the cardamom bitter, which is the most common mistake.

Crush the cardamom pods. Whole pods release almost nothing. Press them with the flat of a knife until they split.

Add the spirit last and off the heat. The aquavit or vodka is there for character as much as strength, and both evaporate.

Serve in small glasses rather than mugs, around 65°C, with a spoon and a bowl of raisins and almonds on the side so people can help themselves.

Where to go from here

The mulled drinks collection covers every glögg variant here alongside the continental versions, and our guide to the history of glögg traces how a medieval spiced wine became a Nordic institution.

If you want the Nordic character without the wine, alcohol-free glögg and the wider alcohol-free collection are the places to start.