What a beautiful gin. Thank you Nina Tans for bringing it back from Finland.

Lójhtu gin is distilled at the Tornio Brewery in Lapland – the most northerly part of Finland.

The area is famous for its vast natural landscapes and stunning subarctic phenomena like the summer midnight sun and breath-taking Aurora Borealis.

Magical Imagery

The gin’s branding reflects this beauty, especially the Northern Lights themselves, with reminiscent colouring adorning the inside of the bottle.

However, the branding also alludes to another, quite literally magical aspect of Northern Finnish heritage.

Lójhtu means ‘spell’ and the gin is meant to conjure up imagery of the ancient knowledge of the people in the region – especially the wiser folk who knew food from poison; season from season; leaf, root and berry. This knowledge must have seemed magical, and indeed the folk who had this knowledge were regarded as magicians of their time.

The Vikings, known for their fearsome raids and fearless outlook were said to be scared of only one thing – the power of these bewitching northern practitioners.

As well as herbology, these mystical folk were believed to have some sort of eerie affinity with the Northern Lights themselves, seen as a powerful and unearthly power from beyond the world of man, yet something they could use for their own will.

Their knowledge was not to be trifled with, even by the most intimidating berserkers.

Whether you believe in magic or not, the Northern Lights are an utterly awesome sight (indeed one of the few occurrences where the word ‘awesome’ truly applies). They kindled legends for centuries before they inspired the beautiful branding of this bottle.

But just as important as the other-worldly spectacle of the aurora is the understanding that these people must have had of this vast and potentially punishing ecosystem to the extent that they could find, not just sustenance but also cures, poisons, painkillers and rich flavours in the form of berries and leaves. These early mystics were truly magical for that alone.

Magic is Medicine

There is significant crossover between the skills and knowledge of those ancient magicians with the next iteration of social sorcery: the medieval herbalists, early doctors and experts of natural medicine who emerged to provide their communities with cures and treatments over the subsequent years.

This crossover continues today, with the use of many of these same ancient leaves, berries and other natural ‘spells’ in the gin botanicals of the modern age.

The vast majority of standard gin botanicals, including juniper, liquorice, coriander, angelica, orris root and all the range of citrus fruits have served as medicines in their time.

As such, it feels like Lójhtu gin represents a vast arc, soaring from the ancient ‘magical’ herbalists of pre-recorded history, through to the modern era of ‘medicinal’ botanicals in well-crafted gins.

The Gin Itself

Well-crafted it is. Lójhtu has a slightly higher alcohol percentage than many standard gins, which will cement Finland’s happy reputation for hard drinking that tiny bit more. Bravo!

Despite that extra strength, this is a smooth gin, with a soft flavour profile of herbs and berries.

The botanicals of northern Finland are said to be particularly potent. The short growing season and extreme temperatures have forced nature to adapt through concentrating the flavours and moisture of its plant life into particularly flavoured berries and leaves, all imparted into this lovely gin.

The Lójhtu Martini

The gin is dry overall and makes a lovely, rounded martini, especially if you keep the gin in the freezer (or outdoors if your climate is cold enough).

Pour it to your martini preference but I would recommend it dry, if not Bone Dry to really appreciate the flavour profile. I garnished it with olives in the photo above but it actually goes better with a frozen berry or two.

For a start they seem more visually suitable, and more evocative, but also because they don’t impart too much flavour to the drink so you can really appreciate those sub-arctic botanicals on their own. Frozen cranberries worked particularly well for a nice wintry look and feel without competing with the gin’s flavour profile.

A spring of rosemary would also work from an aesthetic perspective but you don’t want to drown out the delicate botanicals of the gin with strong herbs.

Otherwise, sip it slowly, taking time to appreciate the wonder of the Nordic wilderness and the long, magical history of herbology, leading mankind from primordial origins and an affinity to nature right through the centuries of medicinal advances to the beauty of gins we can all appreciate today.

Kippis!