A visit to Scotland inspired the founding of the world’s northernmost distillery, situated at an old NATO base in Lyngen in Troms County in Northern Norway.
THE WORLD’S NORTHERNM T he story behind the Lyngen distillery is interesting in itself. Hans-Olav Eriksen was a general practitioner who started with adventure tourism – Lyngsfjord Adventure – in 2008. It soon became apparent that the tourism industry needed a quality standard, and Eriksen travelled to Scotland in 2010 to investigate their Quality Assurance scheme. The trip proved to be an eye opener.
RESEMBLES SCOTLAND
Eriksen observed that the Scottish fauna, landscape and nature had a 120
striking similarity to where he grew up by the Lyngenfjord near Tromsø. The nature was the raw material for the Scots’ most important product: whiskey. Hence, it was entirely transferable to the conditions in the cold north. Eriksen toyed with the idea of creating an Arctic whiskey, but others regarded this idea as a joke. ”However, the first batch of gin was finished in September 2016 and the whisky will be ready for storage in the middle of November, Tor Petter Christensen says. He is the CEO at
the newly constructed distillery Aurora Spirits at Årøybukt in Lyngen in northern Norway. The distillery has its name from the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights.
SWEETER INGREDIENTS
The world’s northernmost distillery is built on a former NATO coastal fort from the Cold War and stores its casks in old tunnels once used for military purposes. Christensen thinks the combination of cold climate and arctic ingredients will produce a unique
