Do you know the beautiful ptarmigan - in English ptarmigan - with its fine white, wintry plumage?
In snowy landscapes, the grouse looks like a big snowball, and under the right circumstances it can be quite trusting. As a rule, grouse are found in larger or smaller flocks, and you can sometimes get quite close to them. This is not necessarily in the grouse's favour, as they risk ending up in the soup pot, where a dish with their delicate, dark meat with a rich and powerful game flavor makes a formidable dinner. Preferably together with coarse vegetables, sauce, mushrooms and lingonberry jam. Then there is not a dry eye.
The grouse is a hen bird that lives on willow shoots and the fresh and frozen berries of the mountains. The "harvest" of berries and herbs ends up in the bird's small food reservoir, called the inn, where the food is stored before continuing to the digestive system. Here in the inn you will find a selection of the mountain's and the season's tastiest berries and herbs, and after emptying the grouse's inn, you can use these carefully collected seeds and berries for seasoning or schnapps. And that is exactly what I have done in this Clan Ptarmigan Spirit of yours.
The grouse are killed partly in Greenland and partly on Svalbard, as the Greenland grouse were shot years ago by my former expedition partner and my then best friend, the now sadly deceased policeman Frederik Heilmann Lynge. Frederik liked a trip to the mountains, and he had a lot of grouse on his conscience, and when he heard that I was interested in the contents of the inns, they were carefully dried and sent to me for schnapps production.
Later I got to know the wonderful couple Karina Bernlow and Martin Hartmann from Svalbard. They run the company Green Dog Svalbard, where they arrange fantastic experiences for tourists visiting Svalbard all year round. Karina and Martin are both exceptionally good trappers and hunters, and they have killed quite a few grouse on Svalbard, where, like Frederik, they have carefully taken care of the contents of the inns, which have been vacuum packed and frozen into this din Klan brandy.
The contents from the inns have been drawn on 96% wheat fine spirit - vodka - for 3-4 months, after which the concentrate is added with additional vodka and filtered. It has become a unique spice schnapps that you can enjoy with a good Danish lunch.
GOOD LUCK, and really enjoy it.
Anders Bilgram, Distiller
