the serious Finn
This is a review of Finlandia vodka from Finland. I sampled it Germany in 2012. It’s clear, 40% alcohol, and I thought it was nice but not exciting.
There’s this thing with Nordic vodka brand names: Danzka vodka is from Denmark, Svedka vodka is from Sweden, and Finlandia vodka is from…? That’s right. And apparently, the barley they use for this vodka comes from the village of Koskenkorva in the Southwest of Finland. Incidentally, this is also where the great Koskenkorva vodka is from.
So far so good.
American owners
Finlandia vodka used to be state-owned, but now it belongs to the American company Brown-Forman. There’s a website at finlandia.com that looks pretty slick:
Just like in the case of Koskenkorva, there is a strong emphasis on Finlandia vodka coming from a NATURAL LAND. The difference is that Finlandia talks about it in a serious way, mentioning ad nauseam the UNSETTING MIDNIGHT SUN and GLACIAL SPRING WATER, whereas Koskenkorva is more tongue-in-cheek:
Maybe this is the reason why Finlandia’s brand video has only a few thousand views (while Koskenkorva has more than a million):
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Need a short synopsis?
There’s talk of the unsetting sun:
There’s talk of a beautiful place where people do things differently:
There’s talk of ancient moraines:
And it’s all narrated in the first person, as if the vodka was doing the talking:
I mean, it’s not a bad video. But it’s nothing you would forward to your friends. The same applies to the company lore on the website:
Nice but uninteresting. Also, they have recently redesigned the bottle, and I guess I liked the old design a bit better.
not as smooth
So back to our review: just how good is Finlandia vodka anyway? Well, it wasn’t bad. The taste was smooth, and there was a mild aroma in the aftertaste. But compared to Koskenkorva the smoothness was lacking a little bit, and the aftertaste just wasn’t as exciting.
The bottle design was simple and clean, though. And the retail price of 12€ for 700ml was really good.
All in all, Finlandia vodka is a solid vodka brand. Nothing overly exciting, but good.