Brännvin is a Swedish word for liquor distilled from potatoes, grain, or (formerly) wood cellulose; it may be flavored or unflavored. The term includes vodka and akvavit, but akvavit is always flavored.

Beverages labelled brännvin or viina are usually unflavored and have an alcohol content between 30% and 38% ABV. European Union regulations reserve the name “vodka” for beverages distilled to at least 95% ABV and bottled at 37.5% or higher. InFinland, the word viina is always used for Finnish-made neutral spirit, including Finnish vodka, and the Russian word (vodka) is used only for vodkas from other countries.

The term “vodka” was not used for Swedish vodkas before 1958.

The word brännvin means “burnt wine”; the Finnish equivalent (palo)viina means “burnt liquor.” (Sometimes the distillation of beverages is called “burning.”) It has the same linguistic roots as English brandy and German Branntwein.

The Norwegian word is brennevin. The Danish word is brændevin. The Finnish word is (palo)viina.

There is also an Icelandic version, called brennivín, which is similar to Danish and Swedish akvavit.

1st Plum brännvin.

This shot, suitable as an aperitif, it is good to have in barskåpet. It can 
also used in the flambe´ of a proper dessert at a dinner party. 

Follow these steps: 

Pour approximately 20 cl of a 1 / 1 of pure alcohol, such as Absolut Vodka or Vodka 
Special (for a slightly weaker schnapps alcohol) in a beaker or other 
suitable vessel. 
Add the plums to the surface, preferably with some crushed grains. 
Cover with plastic film. 
Let stand for one week. 
Filter essence (coffee filters are fine). 
Pour back into the bottle. 

Enjoy as an aperitif or for flambe´.

Symbel (OE) and sumbl (ON) are Germanic terms for “feast, banquet”.

Paul C. Bauschatz in 1976 suggested that the term reflects a pagan ritual which had a “great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people”.Bauschatz’ lead is followed only sporadically in modern scholarship, but his interpretation has inspired such solemn drinking-rituals in Germanic neopaganism.

The ritual according to Bauschatz was always conducted indoors, usually in a chieftain’s mead hall. Symbel involved a formulaic ritual which was more solemn and serious than mere drinking or celebration. The primary elements of symbel are drinking ale or mead from a drinking horn, speech making (which often included formulaic boasting and oaths), and gift giving. Eating and feasting were specifically excluded from symbel, and no alcohol was set aside for the gods or other deities in the form of a sacrifice.

Accounts of the symbel are preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf (lines 489-675 and 1491–1500), Dream of the Rood and Judith, Old Saxon Heliand, and the Old NorseLokasenna as well as other Eddic and Saga texts, such as in the Heimskringla account of the funeral ale held by King Sweyn, or in the Fagrskinna.

The bragarfull ”promise-cup” or bragafull ”best cup” or “chieftain’s cup” (compare Bragi) was in Norse culture a particular drinking from a cup or drinking horn on ceremonial occasions, often involving the swearing of oaths when the cup or horn was drunk by a chieftain or passed around and drunk by those assembled. The names are sometimes anglicized as bragarful and bragaful respectively.

That the name appears in two forms with two meanings makes it difficult to determine the literal meaning. The word bragr ’best, foremost’ is a source for its first element. The form bragafull (but not bragarfull) can also be interpreted as ‘Bragi’s cup’, referring to the Bragi, god of poetry, though no special connection to Bragi appears in any of the sources.

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