Here’s a toast to the Loki lock with a deliciously devilish cocktail. I created a variation on the classic Last Word, a vintage cocktail that traditionally features gin, lemon, green Chartreuse and maraschino liqueur in equal parts. It has a great template to play with, by simply interchanging any or all of the ingredients with something else within the same category. Instead of gin, try tequila, for example, or in place of maraschino, a sweet cherry liqueur, use a different flavor. It’s the ultimate shape-shifting cocktail, and so appealing it can be dangerous … sound familiar?

For a toast to Loki, we need particularly Scandinavian ingredients and flavors the Vikings of Old might have recognized. Clearly we need to use the quintessential Scandinavian spirit, aqvavit, for the base here. Aqvavit (or aquavit) is similar to gin, and traditionally infused with prominent Scandinavian flavors like caraway, dill, fennel, anise and clove. Another historical Norwegian drink was mead, fermented honey “wine”, so our drink is sweetened with honey in place of the maraschino. Although mead can be traced back to ancient China and India, and made its way throughout the histories of ancient Greece, Wales and Ireland, there is an etymological link to Old Norse and a literary tie to Norse mythology. The Mead of Suttungr (Mead of Poetry) grants the drinker scholarly knowledge and the gift of poetry. There is a long tale of the potion’s provenance, telling of how it was created from the spit of the gods, the murder of a man, and the theft by deceit of the mead by the king of the gods, Odin himself. Odin brought this stolen wine of knowledge back to the other gods, but a little leaked out from his behind, and that is what we mortals get to drink. (Now you know that everything you think you know is just a bunch of … spit.) I can picture Loki, sipping on this cocktail at Ragnorak and laughing, as he always manages to get the last word. Cheers!

Loki’s Last Word

1 oz aquavit

1 oz green Chartreuse

1 oz lime

¾ oz honey syrup