Boozehound - Jason Wilson [62]
Of course, understanding terroir better meant actually experiencing these spirits—and their raw ingredients—at the source. Which meant more travel. Which meant more looking at things and trying new drinks.
Famous Potatoes
It’s a question I’ve posed before, and I will pose it again now: does the world need another vodka? Maybe that doesn’t rank up there with life’s great philosophical puzzles, such as “What is the nature of the universe?” or “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or even “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” But it’s the sort of question that people in the cocktails and spirits business—not to mention lifestyle journalism—think about. In April 2009, the Wall Street Journal officially declared, “Vodka is passé.” A few weeks later, the New York Times countered, “Vodka Dead? Not So Fast.” This level of debate probably explains why no one asked lifestyle journalists to help solve the financial crisis, stop the swine flu pandemic, or save the ailing newspaper industry.
Given that vodka producers keep coming up with new marketing angles, I was not particularly surprised to learn that the makers of a new Swedish vodka called Karlsson’s Gold claimed to be “the first luxury vodka that can sincerely boast its own terroir.” Nor did it surprise me that this vodka is made exclusively from new potatoes grown on Sweden’s Cape Bjäre (“the region is to potatoes what France’s Bordeaux region is to grapes,” according to the company). Nor that these potatoes are so delicate that they must be washed and refrigerated within four hours of harvest. Nor that they are sought after by chefs in Scandinavia’s finest restaurants. Nor that the creation of the vodka was motivated by its maker’s altruistic desire to keep Cape Bjäre’s potato farmers on their land. Ah yes, a terroir vodka! I was not surprised by any of it.
Potatoes, in particular, were the main part of my family business. So I was excited that summer to visit Cape Bjäre, on Sweden’s southeastern coast, to meet the farmers who made terroir vodka. Håkan Paulsson, one of the farmers, greeted me and poured me a shot of vodka in coffee, a traditional eye-opener called kaffegok. Paulsson was a no-bullshit guy, and I liked him immediately. How did you get involved in the vodka business, I wanted to know. “Well do you want a story, or a true story?” Paulsson said, with a wink. Money seemed to be the main story. There appeared to be an awful lot of golf courses in Bjäre, which is sort of like a Swedish Hamptons. I’m guessing a lot of those golf courses were once potato farms.
He showed off the various local potatoes that grow only in Bjäre, varieties neither I nor my father nor my uncle had ever heard of: Solist, Minerva, Gammel Svensk Rod (Old Swedish Red). “How would you describe the taste of these potatoes?” I asked.
“Well, how about for you? It’s very difficult to describe taste,” Paulsson said. “Many Swedish people have grown up eating Old Swedish Red and herring. And then they moved to the United States!”
Later, over a boozy dinner at a fishing cottage by the sea, I met one of the founders of Karlsson’s Gold, multimillionaire Peter Ekelund. As the midnight sun didn’t set and the vodka flowed, I was a little surprised by Ekelund’s rhetorical question. “Does the world need another vodka?” he asked. “The product has gotten so boring. It’s gotten too big for its own good.” His response to his own question was, of