WHICH WAY NEXT?

I'm heading north today to Iceland and this is going to give me the opportunity to once again enjoy the wonderful Winterful Martin Miller's Gin.  Whilst this gin is UK distilled, the water they use comes from a beautiful area in the west of Iceland near Borgarnes.  This Icelandic Spring Water comes from snow which fell over 800 years ago and has seeped through hundreds of meters of volcanic rock and accumulated in deep underground aquifers.  

The Winterful Edition adds fragrant mulled wine spices and mandarins to their Original Gin and gives you the essence of winter in a glass.  It's a G&T to sip whilst curled up in front of a fire or better still, sitting in an outdoor hottub during the winter solstice and watching the aurora borealis dance across the sky.   

It can also be enjoyed warmed up, so I've served this as a Mulled Gin, using Soho Mixers Blood Orange and a stick of cinnamon.

GUARDIAN SPIRITS

Icelandic Eagle Gin is distilled by Volcanic Drinks in Reykjavik using Icelandic water and traditional gin botanicals and is part of their Icelandic Mountain Spirits Collection.  The recommended serve is with ginger ale and a slice of lemon.

According to local folklore, Iceland has four guardian spirits - a bull, dragon, mountain giant and an eagle.  Look closely at the label on the bottle and you will see the Icelandic flag and eagle.  The blue background of the flag represents the ocean and across this is a red and white layered Nordic Cross, symbolising the natural beauty of this land of fire (red) and ice (white). 

The Four Guardians each protect a section of the island.  There are tales told of a wizard who was sent to Iceland by King Harald of Denmark, who sought to invade it as revenge for its disrespect of his court.  The wizard was attacked in the east by a dragon and in the north by a giant eagle, whose wingspan stretched across the mountains.  He tried the west and he was stormed by a giant bull and in the south a mountain giant chased him off with an iron spear.  The message of this legend is clear - Iceland is protected from evil intentions and even the Vikings did not wish to provoke the dragon, so when approaching, they removed their dragon mastheads, so as not to provoke the dragon.  

While I have a reference to King Harald, I thought I would throw in a little bit of something you may already know and technology that you use every day!  There are various speculations as to how Harald got his nickname "The Bluetooth".   Harald supposedly had a very conspicuous dead tooth that was dark and looked blue;  other stories say he was partial to blueberries and liquorice, which stained his teeth - nobody really knows! The legends also tell that he was a good facilitator and communicator, who united the tribes of Denmark into a single Kingdom and so it's quite apt that his merged initials H and B in Nordic runes (called a bind-rune) make up the instantly recognisable logo of Bluetooth Technology.  Interesting isn't it?