A little while ago I was browsing in my local liquor store, and saw something new. It was called "Long Drink," or less abbreviated, "The Finnish Long Drink, Legend of 1952." Well, clearly I couldn't resist this come on. For the record, I had the traditional citrus flavor, and the business behind this was The Long Drink Company, headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.
The name "long drink" is actually kind of generic. In general, a "short drink" (aka "shooter") is a mixed drink with some non-alcoholic ingredients combined with one or more alcoholic drinks, as a kind of a large shot. It's usually served in a large, double shot glass, or a small glass. A long drink is also a mixed drink, only for this one the non-alcoholic elements are a much larger portion, and the overall creation is put in a tall glass. Anyway, with that out of the way, let's get into the history of the Finnish Long Drink. Back in 1952 Finland was set to host the Olympic Summer Games. Therefore, huge international crowds of sports fans were scheduled to invade Helsinki and its surrounding area, and these people would naturally want copious amounts of adult refreshments. Finland hadn't had much of drinking tradition in a while. It had Prohibition from 1919-32, and then World War II had clearly disrupted Finland's supplies of alcohol, as well as everything else. Anyway, Finland realized it had to change this up, fast. The government thus relaxed some of the more restrictive laws about alcoholic beverages, and encouraged businesses to create 2 new drinks for the incoming customers. One of these was a cocktail combining brandy with a local soft drink called Pommac. That beverage was only semipopular at best, and was mostly discontinued in the 1970's, until a later revival in the 21st century. The other drink, which combined gin with a grapefruit-flavored soft drink, was huge. It became known as the Long Drink, and quickly became Finland's favorite alcoholic drink, period. In Finland Long Drink is rendered as "lonkero," which is a Finnish approximation of the English words "long drink." (Confusingly, lonkero is also a Finnish word meaning "tentacle," but this is evidently just a coincidence.) Lonkero is usually between 5 to 8.5% alcohol, and is sometimes flavored with cranberry or lime. Also, after Finland joined the EU in 1995 its government relaxed its alcohol production laws even further, so even more companies started making their own versions of lonkero. Some of these use some different ingredient, such as using orange or lemon flavoring, or utilizing cider as the base instead of gin. Currently the most popular brand of lonkero is made by Hartwell. Lonkero/Finnish Long Drink had begun to be introduced to other nations--now folks in China, Japan, Taiwan, Estonia, and the U.S. are starting to embrace it. Additionally, it should be mentioned that lonkero isn't that unusual or innovative. Another drink, the "greyhound," predates it, and a greyhound is gin (or sometimes vodka) mixed with grapefruit juice, instead of a grapefruit flavored soft drink. And in Mexico the Paloma (see my post on November 14, 2020) mixes tequila with a grapefruit-flavored soft drink. So there were/are other very similar drinks made in other places.
The history of The Long Drink Company was a little harder to learn. However, I did discover that the company was begun in 2017 by 3 Finnish guys and 1 American. The former were Ere Partanen, Sakari Manninen, and Mikael Taipale, with the latter was Evan Burns. The official company website also notes that actor Miles Teller, musician DJ Kygo, and golfer Rickie Fowler are involved with Long Drink, both as spokespeople and investors. The Long Drink Company has a partnership with Matt Brewing in New York to make and can their drinks--Matt is also known for making the Saranac and Utica Club brands of beer. Aside from the traditional citrus one that I sampled, Long Drink also makes a Zero flavor (zero carbs or sugar), a Strong one (8.5% alcohol as opposed to the other's 5 to 5.5 %), and a Cranberry flavored kind.
Long Drink, traditional citrus flavor: Had a citrus-y, lemon-ish odor, and was cloudy--it kind of resembled lemonade. And it tasted like a lemon soda (soft drink). Pretty good. Not awesome, but good enough. I couldn't taste the alcohol, either. (It was 5.5%.) So overall a decent hard soft drink, if I can make up an oxymoron. After I had some I looked at the label, and that's when I first discovered that it was gin, with grapefruit and juniper flavors. Which shocked me. I despise gin, grapefruit, and juniper. So the fact that I didn't loathe this is a ringing endorsement of sorts. Therefore, I would heartily recommend this to those who like gin, grapefruit, and juniper, and would recommend even those that don't like these flavors to at least give it a try.
If you're curious, Miles Teller is arguably best known for roles in such films as "Rabbit Hole" (2010), "Whiplash" (2014), the "Divergent" series (2014-16), "Fantastic Four" (2015), "War Dogs" (2016), and "Top Gun: Maverick" (2022). Kygo is a well-regarded, Norwegian DJ. Rickie Fowler is still active, and to date has won 10 golf titles, although he's still looking for his first Major win. His highest career ranking was #4 in early 2016. Finally, in the 1952 Olympic games in Helsinki, the top medal totals by country were the U.S. with 76, the Soviet Union with 71, Hungary with 42, Sweden with 36, and host Finland with 22. Individual stars include Soviet gymnast Viktor Chukarin, who won 4 gold medals, and Czechoslovakian runner Emil Zatopek, who won 3 golds.
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