I haven’t had schnapps ever. Should I just drink them neat or pair it with other alcoholic drinks and make cocktails?
I haven’t had schnapps ever. Should I just drink them neat or pair it with other alcoholic drinks and make cocktails?
48 comments
Neat ofc. They are heavily flavored.
You shot them with your pickled herring on midsummer or christmas
No, it’ll make for some gross cocktails.
Dont expect 2 much, you got some potent stuff there with strong flavours. Put them in the freezer until you’ll drink them, they probably taste best chilled.
Boil potato with some dill. Serve with pickled herring or tofu/aubergine.
Pour up some chilled snaps in pointly glasses. Sing any jolly tune, drink. Repeat.
Make sure to put them in the freezer before you drink them (unless it’s below -21 Celsius, the use the fridge).
Chill them and then you drink them as they are.
Look up Swedish Christmas or midsummer food to serve with it.
Serve them with lager and just about any meat and potatoes dish.
[Mandatory drinking songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMaGSv-W_c&list=OLAK5uy_lkkR-Uf8VzWLekbzrNOqs_34fI-u0ifrc)
Everyone has already said you drink them neat, but I want to add that a lot of them may be a bit of an acquired taste. Fennel, anis, dill – the spices used are strong in themselves. Mixing them with other beverages is a guaranteed disaster!
You grab one, open it, sing ”Helan går sjung hoppfallralla rallanlej x2, och den som inte helan tar den inte heller halvan får, helan gåååååååår, sjung hoppfallerallan lej!” and then you drink the whole thing neat.
Normaly as shots together with sea food and potatoes. Can also be used as chasers with lager/pilsner.
Some snaps might work as [Avec](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avec) with coffee.
Drink them as they are and dont you dare to bita av den lilla jäveln innan its empty.
Neat, and probably chilled if you’re not used to the flavours.
Have them with any hearty meal and a beer.
Drink them with Surströmming but do it at a friend’s house
Always neat, those are some pretty good snaps. Don’t ruin them
Get a a big glass, pour them all in, stir, throw in a pine cone as decoration and drink.
Just chug when you’re fucked up so you don’t taste them.
Very important to put them in the freezer before you drink them! When you take them out you can also have them in a bucket of ice. Drink half at a time while eating traditional Swedish foods like potato and dill, herring, meatballs, eggs with shrimp etc.
!!!!!!!!!!!! Drink these at room temperature at your own risk !!!!!!!!!!!!
Gift haha there’s a reason we only drink them at christmas and midsummer, they’re really nasty but tradition requires you to drink at least one. The only drinkable of them is fjäderholmarna, if you enjoy the taste of elderflowers. I think your friend pranked you as in “gift a really gross thing from your country” prank, but everyone knows of pickled herring so here you have snaps instead
You sing a song and then down the bottle
Jag köper inte längre skärgårdssnappsar sedan de plockade bort ”Gubben” 😢
Make some [pea soup](https://www.swedishfood.com/swedish-food-recipes-starters/134-pea-soup) and thin swedish pancakes (crepes), heat the snapps gently and drink it with the alcohol fumes “steaming” off and making your eyes tear up a bit!
Pea soup for the main meal and pancakes as dessert with snapps served throughout!
Bonus if you do it on a thursday, the traditional pea soup day.
If it’s summer you can throw them in the freezer instead of heating.
Definitely neat, preferably in a schnapps glass.
At festive occasions swedes will prepare a meal and print out the lyrics to a bunch of songs. When someone feels like it they can start singing and others will join in and then you drink the whole thing.
They’re pretty strong in both flavor and alcohol so you may prefer to dilute it slightly with water.
As others have pointed out, you drink them neat during a festive lunch or dinner. Often together with potatoes, fish and beer.
However if you wish to make cocktails with them here’s what I would suggest. The ones with “akvavit” anywhere in its name or descriptions can be used in certain cocktails. Some call for akvavit. In not all, but some drinks you can replace gin or vodka in a cocktail with akvavit.
The svartvinbärsnaps could work in a Bramble style of cocktail.
Utö and Fläderholmarna could work in the Maid cocktail subfamily since some already include hints of elderflower.
Neat – and in my opinion there’s no need to chill them since most of them taste amazing, with the one called Utö being my absolute favorite.
If you would want to mix any of them I would recommend using “Utö” and “Käringön”. “Utö”, if it is like other elderflower spirits, goes well with ginger beer/ale or maybe some tonic water and with “Käringön” you maybe could replace the Creme de Cassis and do a stronger and less sweet Kir Royal with some sparkling wine or just drink it on the rocks.
Drink them neat, left to right, sing incoerently and sleep well afterwards.
Not cocktail-material. you drink it plain like a shot, as we call it nubbe/snaps.
No drinking unless you sing!
The elderberry is terrific on its own, but you can mix pretty good drinks with it
Neat, chilled.
Ice cold
“Bita av”, rationing them are ok, you get more songs out of them so. Chilling dulls the flavour, only do that for bad quality.
If you have “Rånäs Brännvin” there you must sing “Calle Schewens vals” https://youtu.be/2OoCbqH0KX4 a few lines at least 😉
I prefer Akvavit room temperature.
more flavor.
Well, What would Arnold do?
[Highly related.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW2z3pMILm8)
It never occurred to me to ever make drinks out of it. But I think that Utö could be a good base with like a schweppes lemon or something.
But yeah, like most other said, the strong spices will not mix well with regular drinks.
Dont listen to people saying it can’t be used in cocktails, either they have done it wrong or havent really tried it. Traditional use is to take it as a shot along with specific kinds of food. But since it’s essentially a kind of Nordic gin, a distilled alcoholic drink with botanicals, much different botanicals mind you but if you work with the flavor profile it can make great cocktails. Take for example [Norwegian paralysis ](https://www.theeducatedbarfly.com/norwegian-paralysis/), it’s really delicious and complex.
Step one: Throw away the bottle that says ”beska droppar”. Step two: pick a bottle and pour it into a snapsglas. step three: sing ”helan går” and end the song with shouting ”skål!” step four: ”chug the snapsglas and pour a new one.
You always drink the first one in one go, after that you are allowed to only drink half of it at a time.
Drink them ice Cold during a heavy and festive meal
Right way to drink it? You have to drink it during a meal and don’t forget to sing a snapsvisa before every schnapps!
You should check out this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/sweden/comments/98uaj8/max_von_sydow_visar_hur_man_sk%C3%A5lar_med_stil/
Isn’t this a repost?
My fellow swedes, please stop spelling snaps like germans immediately! Don’t encourage it. Most of these are akvavit, some are besk by the looks of it, right?
To OP: What a lovely gift! These are supposed to be enjoyed neat and not too cold, most of them go together great with gravlax, herring, potatoes, etc. Some will be flavoured with dill, others with caraway, some with fennel and even wormwood, among other herbs, spices and flowers.
Sure you can make some experimental cocktails but with such small bottles of each, how will you be able to dial in the recipe?:)
Edit:
This is what you have: Brännö (St. Johns wort), Sandhamn (myrica gale), Käringön (black currant), Piraten (caraway, dill, sherry), Utö (elderflower, lemon), Marstrand (sorrel, myrica gale, bitter orange, fennel), Vinga (fennel, anise), Fjäderholmarna (elderflower), Saltö (Carlest, fennel, myrica gale), Grinda (dill).
Haven’t you seen Midsommar?
Well as a Swede the snaps has a long and deep tradition dating back to at least 1500 with the “Brännvinsbord” (vodka table). That is the original Swedish “smörgårdsbord” that with minor variations is what “every” Swede eats for all holidays. The major events being midsummer and Christmas that obviously has roots long before Christianity stole Christmas.
As many mentions singing together before a deeply ritualized toast raising the glass high look everyone in the eyes where you supposed to take that whole (but small) glass in one gulp. If the weather conditions allow for the feast to be located outside this is always to be preferred way, and even more preferable near nature and or water.
Sauna and or skinny dipping is almost mandatory at midsummer and ok activities at many get togethers. Getting unordily drunk is a bit laughed about but is nor unusual or something worth raising eyebrows about on these occasions (swedes are not Irish and getting drunk at ordinary dinner parties or at the pub is thrown upon).
With pickled herring, *inlagd sill*.
One bottle is one serving. Find small glasses that will hold one miniature bottle. You drink them pure in one go, preferably a bit under room temperature. Piratens (named after Swedish author Fritiof Nilsson Piraten) is my favorite, but try them all and find your own.