Salmiakkikossu - salt liquorice vodka

[andygates]

This is what happens when Finns go near the sweet shop.

Take some grain booze.  Dissolve salt liquorice in it.  There are specific varieties to use, and a branded version, but the basic idea is simple enough to... try at home!  Of course I had to.

One large handful of Mr Simm's Double Salt liquorices and a half-bottle of average vodka later, the liquid is black and the sweeties are weird Poe jellyfish.  It smells like cough drops.

It tastes... wow.  A bolt of bitter liquorice carried on sweet solvent, then the sal ammoniac kicks in and it's a lip-smacking drool fest.

If you like big chunky tastes like cigars and brown sauce and chewing baccy and fisherman's friends, give it a go.

Well played, Finland, well played.

[Hot Flatus]

Salmiakki also possesses slightly psychadelic properties, as I discovered about 10 years ago in a Helsinki nightclub, when I stumbled across somebody I recognised as being very familiar but couldn't quite place.

[spesh]

 Salmiakkikossu - try saying that after a few shots ...

[Mrs Pingu]

<cottons on to Pingu's request to bring salty black stuff back from the land of Nog this week....>

[mrcharly-YHT]

salt liquorice tastes of fish, which is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

It would take a penguin to like it, I reckon.

[citoyen]

I remember being offered a taste of someone's Spunk on a CM ride a couple of years ago. One of the Scandinavian yacfers, iirc - woollypigs? I liked it.

Salty liquorice vodka sounds fantastic. I had a Norwegian beer recently, the flavour of which I would probably describe in similar terms - it was from the Nøgne Ø brewery, but I can't remember if it was the Imperial Stout or the Porter.

d.

[Regulator]

Not just Finns.  My Swedish flatmate used to do this as well.  She used to stick all sorts of things in to voda.

The salty liquorice vodka is best served from the freezer, so it oozes out of the bottle. 

Thinking about it, my Finnish other half liked the sweets - but he never put them in voda...

[urban_biker]

Salmiakkikossu - try saying that after a few shots ...

Its self regulating alcohol. Once you get to the point when you can no longer say it - its impossible to order more at the bar.

[CAMRAMan]

I have some of Woolypig's Spunk that I'll consume later.

[Wowbagger]

My son's cohabitee is of a Finnish persuasion and quite often when they venture towards the Arctic Circle, they bring me a bottle or two of Salmiakki.

I like it, it is good.

[andygates]

Opinions in the office park lunchbreak-with-contraband were sharply divided: one love, one like, two horrors and two too timid to try it.   

[redshift]

Don't Fishy Friends come in some weird Scandiwegian salty liquorice flavour that's considered too extreme to sell in the UK?  I'm sure I read that somewhere.  Thinking about it, it was probably on YACF...

[andygates]

Apparently so! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisherman%27s_Friend 

Anyone going norf? 

[Jakob]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrkisk_Peber

These were also mixed with vodka and was, as the article mentions, called "Sorte Svin" (Black Pigs), until a bit of common sense (and a drizzle of political correctness) caught up with it, as it was also often used as a racial slur.

[Mrs Pingu]

Apparently so! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisherman%27s_Friend 

Anyone going norf? 

Fisherman's Friend Salmiak Black Stripe available at Stavanger Duty free apptly, where I shall be in a couple of weeks.... (I forgot to look when I was there this week and got a 'look' from the Pingu.

Also available: 'Pingvin salty liquorice'

[Mrs Pingu]

They're a darn sight cheaper here though: http://www.approvedfood.co.uk/sweets/lofthouses_fishermans_friend_salmiak_sugar_free_lozenges_4_x_25g

[pcolbeck]

We are currently working our way through a large bar of slat liquorice chocolate given to us by our Swedish exchange student a couple of weeks ago, It is interesting ....