Floki

From the first time we spoke with Halli, it was clear that he was a pragmatic, straight talking business owner and an open-minded ‘ideas’ guy. He’s obviously good at what he does; Floki Whisky now proudly stands as the only truly Icelandic single malt with a wide range of expressions, offering a window to the unique Icelandic environment and raw materials. And they have only just begun - what we see now is just a glimpse of the incredible whiskies that are coming over the next 5-10 years.

Most impressive to us was the way that this family business has gone about it. We knew already that it would have taken a certain degree of mettle to have conceived the first Icelandic single malt, but if we go back a little further, the Thorkelssons are a fifth generation distilling family - the first legal distillers in Iceland, in fact - it’s in their blood. When Halli and Egil decided to move into whisky, they did everything themselves, building the stills and automation systems (no foreign experts were flown in!), putting the other infrastructure in place, and seeing the dream to fruition through nearly 200 tests and trials over several years.

Now, the Floki brand is flying, but this is no time to rest! During our visit we took a helicopter ride out onto the ice sheets hunting for ice caves for whisky maturation, and they have recently started using ancient sandstone caves (a local tourist attraction) for the same purpose. Eimverk are also one of the only non-Chinese baijiu producers on earth (the world’s best-selling liquor - 10.8bn litres sold in 2018).

The Thorkelsson’s entrepreneurial spirit is plainly evident, and we came away from our time near Rekyavik with a healthy respect for the way they have overcome the challenges of the harsh climate and harnessed their unique natural resources in order to produce fantastic whisky.