On Location: Bored of wine tours? Sweden pours something stronger

STORY BY SHINAN GOVANI

A few things invariably drift to mind when it comes to the enchanting Swedish capital of Stockholm, knifed into an archipelago of 14 islands on the Baltic: Abba, Ikea, Midsommer, and herring.

Men of the Skarsgärd bloodline, too. And those who resemble them, perched on bicycles in Wes Anderson-y neighbourhoods such as Gamla Stan in Old Town.

It's all part of an allure that's seen increased travel interest to Sweden from Canadians, Skyscanner reporting a 79 per cent increase month-to-month in July of last year.

And that's also reflected now in upwards of about 35 flights every week from Toronto to Viking country during this year's summer season, many of them direct, including Air Canada, SAS, and Lufthansa. 

Something that’s just woven into the national psyche, too, as I discovered during a recent jaunt? Absolut Vodka.

A tale of business, art, and branding, its provenance isn’t just a matter of “Made in Sweden,” as the brand’s oh-so-stubby, apothecary-esque bottles like to boast.

Up until 2008, Absolut was actually under national ownership. Owned by Sweden! 

Still sending out over 100 million bottles every year from its shores to the world over – now, under the direction of French spirits company Pernod Ricard – Absolut even makes for an effective quencher for those who like a little bit of history with their travel. Some of it rather surprising.

“Banned in Stockholm”

“Banned in Stockholm.”

So a guide told me when passing by the red-bricked Stockholm City Hall (a behemoth best known today as the venue of the annual Nobel Prize banquet).

The comment? A reference to the city council that once effectively tried to block the very inventor of Absolut, Lars Olson Smith (L.O. for short), back during the late 19th century.

The entrepreneur – born into a poor farming clan – had challenged the city’s liquor marketing monopoly with his vodka, and in a clever work-around, he established operations on the small isle of Reimersholme, a stone’s throw away. Some called it “Vodka Island.”

Then, Smith offered free boat rides to his distillery from Stockholm, turning it into a grand success.

“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”, as that song by Sweden’s most storied band goes.

L.O,’s refusal to play by the rules would eventually lead to the flowering of a global brand and – ironically – one of Scandinavia's most enduring signifiers.

Obsessed with improving the quality of fermentation, Smith later organized an alcohol congress, inviting scientists from all over the world, his legacy even going on to live on through the stiletto-heeled spectre of “Carrie Bradshaw,” a whole century later.

This through the invention of The Cosmopolitan, which a bartender at The Odeon in New York City perfected using Absolut Citron. It would go on to become part of the zeitgeist on Sex and the City.

The mogul’s cheeky nature? It also lurks in the advertising turn that the brand first took in the 1980s, when Absolut forever blurred the line between art and advertising (in a way that is all too commonplace and obvious now!).

“It definitely raised some eyebrows at the time,” another one of my hosts told me, pulling out an Andy Warhol painting for me when we ploughed through the subterranean vaults of the Absolut Art collection, inside an assuming warehouse on the outskirts of Stockholm.

Its backstory goes back to 1985 when the legendary artist was commissioned to do a painting of the Absolut bottle – after which Warhol also recommended one of his protégés, Keith Haring, to make a similar work, presented at one of that decade’s most famous parties at The Whitney Museum.

Presto: a whole new school of pop art! Works which then also flowed from everyone from Stephen Sprouse to Edward Rusha to Damien Hirst! Some 850 works, in total,

Collaborations with fashion designers also ensued, including Gianni Versace, Helmut Lang, and Manolo Blahnik.

Art works riffing on album covers, too – everyone from Miles Davis to David Bowie to the Velvet Underground. And even self-portraits, like the one I eye-spied here by/of Rod Stewart.

“There she is,” the guide said, pulling out a pic of Kate Moss from that aforementioned Versace-led campaign, done two years before Gianni’s death, in an Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden.

Shot by Herb Ritts, and also featuring Naomi Campbell, it’s the stuff of stone-cold fashion history.

Slipping in and out of rows of art, here now, I was actually stunned by the scale of the collection.

And the reach! Some pieces sit in an on-going exhibition at Spiritmuseum, in Stockholm - a must-visit! – and yet others, I was told, are part of an exhibition, opening in May, in the same museum, called Absolutely Absolut, focusing on its advertising legacy.

And what a legacy! Once named as one of the top ten ad campaigns of the 20th century by Advertising Age, and the longest running print campaign in history, those ads are instantly recognizable – all witty variations on the Absolut bottle and a simple two-word caption pairing. Absolut and fill-in-the-blank.

Mostly memorable, perhaps, was their city-centric campaign – wanderlust ads such as Absolut Venice (showing a silhouette of the bottle made up of pigeons in St. Mark’s Square – actually composed, in a pre-AI world!) or Absolut London (a visual pun of the bottle as the door at 10 Downing).

Likewise: Absolut L.A., an aerial image of a deep blue, Absolut-stencilled swimming pool.

Devised by Manhattan advertising agency TBWA, this campaign would run for about 25 years and yield some 1,500 variations. 1,500!

With no insignificant results either: Absolut, which only sold 10,000 cases of vodka a year in the States in 1980, for instance, ultimately saw its sales spike to 4.5 million cases.

Head to the Swedish Riviera

To really get into the spirit of things – back here in 2026 – I side-tripped to southern Sweden. To the town of Ähus.

Population: 10,000, give or take. Sometimes known as the “Swedish Riviera,” and a part of the “Vodka Belt” – making up a string of eastern and Northern European countries where vodka is king. It is where Absolut is actually made, and has long been.

Not to mention, its secret Swedish “sauce.” Using only winter wheat grown by local farmers – we met one of the 400! – and spring water derived from wells more than 140 metres deep, it all amounts to what the company calls its “one source” philosophy.

It’s where I, and a group of other journalists, were taken. For instance, to the brand’s main bottling plant – a 24/7 ballet in action – where we had the opportunity, as well, to peek at its shipping area, where stacks loom as long as skyscrapers.

Ähus, after all, is where half a million bottles are cranked out every day, including the brand’s latest collaboration, Absolut Tobasco, an of-the-moment collab with the American hot sauce brand.

One getting on the spice trend! In a cozy hunting lodge, we enjoyed Bloody Marys to toast the occasion.

Absolutely piquant? You bet. But also so very Swede.

Bored of wine tours? Get thee to Ähus for something a little different, I say!

Where coastline meets forest meets vodka, and which particularly comes alive with holidayers during the summer lull.

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