Winter Wheat
Terroir can have a major influence on ingredients and that’s especially true for Absolut.
The region of Skåne has both the optimal soil conditions and the perfect climate, with its cold, dry winters and long, warm summers, for growing winter wheat. A hardy wheat grain, generations of experience have shown that winter wheat, with its high starch to protein ratio, makes the best vodka.
Sown in September, the winter wheat kernels quickly start to germinate, but with the approach of autumn and the cold winter temperatures, the process stops and they fall dormant.
With the arrival of spring, the wheat bursts back into life and thanks to the long, warm summer days grows quickly, building up the necessary high starch and low protein content.
This guarantees impeccable quality, which for a pure spirit like vodka, where nothing else is added and there’s no ageing process, is of paramount importance.
This guarantees impeccable quality, which for a white spirit like vodka, where nothing else is added and there’s no ageing process, is of paramount importance.
Blessed with the ideal conditions, one square meter of land in Skåne harvests approximately one kilogram of winter wheat, which in turn produces one liter of Absolut Vodka. Nowhere else in Sweden and few other environments around the world achieve such high yields.
Pristine Water
Winter wheat is one of the key ingredients in our vodka; the other is water. Again, the quality of the raw ingredient is reflected in the quality and taste of the final spirit. Another reason why Absolut is produced here and nowhere else.
Our distillery – in fact the whole area in which Absolut is produced – sits above an ancient underground aquifer. This is one of the most pristine water sources you could ever wish for.
The water used in Absolut’s production is drawn from wells up to 200 meters deep. At this depth, it’s estimated the water will have taken thousands of years to filter down through the bedrock, which is reflected in our vodka’s exceptional mouthfeel.
Our Hidden Ingredient
Along with winter wheat and pristine water, Absolut Vodka is made with love for our mother earth, which shapes almost everything we do, starting with our wheat...
From Grain to Glass
Grown using sustainable farming techniques agreed with the local farmers, our winter wheat is harvested in August, then dried, cleaned and stored in local silos. It takes around 400 farms to supply the wheat used to make our vodka in a typical year. That’s around 100,000 tons or 10-15% of all the wheat produced in the region.
When it’s needed, the wheat is delivered in bio-fueled trucks to our main distillery – one of the most energy efficient on the planet, according to a benchmarking study by BIER (Beverage Industries Environmental Roundtable). The distillery operates on a ‘just in time’ principle, with one truck of grain being delivered every two hours throughout the day.
We use only the finest ingredients, so first the wheat is quality-checked to ensure it has the correct moisture level for milling, as well as for pest levels, storage conditions and cleanliness. Absolut operates a tough door policy. Any grains that don’t make the grade, don’t get in!
Milling and Mashing
The grain is delivered as whole kernels, so next it needs to be milled. But not to just any size. For all the starch in the grain to be available to be converted into sugars during the fermentation stage, the particles can’t be any larger than 1.5mm. Any that don’t measure up are caught in a sizing machine and returned to the mill to be ground to a finer size.
Suitably-sized, the milled flour is mixed with pristine water drawn from our wells to form a mash. It’s then heated in three progressively hotter mashing tanks to 95˚C (203˚F) to kill any bacteria and to open up the starch structure. Natural enzymes are added, which convert the large starch molecules in the grain into simple sugars.
Fermentation
The mash is then cooled to 35 ̊C (95 ̊F) and piped into the distillery’s stainless-steel fermentation tanks. We have our own specific strain of yeast, which is now added to the mixture and left to ferment.
The yeast spends the first eight hours growing and multiplying in the tanks. Then it really gets to work, converting the sugars in the mash into alcohol and giving off carbon dioxide. After 48-52 hours, the fermented mash has an alcohol content of about 12% ABV.
True to our environmental principles, nothing’s wasted in the production process. Some of the CO2, for example, is captured and used in the production of algae products containing Omega-3, and in greenhouses to accelerate the growth of tomatoes and cucumbers.
Raw Spirit Distillation
Next stop is our raw spirit still, which consists of two stainless-steel columns: the Mash Column and the Raw Spirit Column.
The fermented mash is added to the top of the Mash Column and steam is pumped in at the bottom. This converts the alcohol in the mash into vapor, which rises up through perforated plates in the Mash Column. This first column produces a raw spirit of 50-70% ABV.
The main by-product of the distillation process is the stillage left over in the Mash Column. Known as ‘drank’ in Swedish, this is high in protein and makes a good animal feed. Our stillage feeds around a quarter of a million pigs and cows on the days the distillery operates. Another example of our sustainable practices!
From there, the vapor passes to the Raw Spirit column, where the alcohol content increases to around 85% ABV.
At the top of the Raw Spirit column, the heated vapor then passes through a bed of sacrificial copper, which is later recycled. The copper removes unwanted sulfur compounds, allowing lighter ester-based flavors to shine through.
Rectification
Our raw spirit is now ready to be rectified into fine spirit, which for most vodka producers is actually their starting point. They simply buy in raw spirit from another manufacturer to rectify.
By producing our raw spirit ourselves, we have complete control over every element of the process – from the quality of the raw ingredient and the size of the flour to the specific type of yeast used. This enables us to create exactly the raw spirit profile that years of experience have taught us works best with the character of the vodka we want to produce.
Our specially crafted raw spirit now transfers to a series of purpose-built fine spirit columns. There are five of these in all – an Extraction Column, two Rectification Columns, a Methanol Column and the Recovery Column.
This bespoke rectification system may have taken our distillers and engineers two years to construct, but the results are worth it. Together, these five columns consistently remove exactly the right amounts of fusel oils, congeners and other unwanted aroma and flavor molecules, achieving the perfect balance between purity and character time after time.
We produce around 42 million liters of this fine spirit – or 125 million bottles of Absolut Vodka – every year. On average, that’s around 10 million bottles a month, 2.5 million a week, over 340,000 each day and over 14,000 bottles every hour.
The fine spirit is stored and rested in stainless-steel tanks next to the distillery, ready for the final stage.
Blending and Bottling
Together, our bottling plants fill an average of 385,000 bottles an hour. First though, our fine spirit needs to be mixed with more of our pristine water to reduce it to bottling strength.
To prevent the spirit from turning cloudy, water used in vodka production must be demineralized. Our water is of such a high quality that we use a process which retains more of its original character. Called reverse osmosis, the water is pumped through tubes at pressure and then through a selective membrane.
The final stage before bottling is filtration. Because our vodka is made from only the finest ingredients and we control the whole process from start to finish, there’s no need for active filtration through materials like charcoal or carbon. For
Absolut, a simple barrier filter is enough to ensure our vodka is crystal clear and free from any hard particles, but still full of character.
Attention to detail is just as important at the bottling stage as elsewhere. First, each bottle is checked thoroughly for faults. We check the diameter at the top for example and the thread, as well as for any chips or cracks, removing – and recycling – any bottles with imperfections. They’re then rinsed with our vodka, so these are the only traces left in the bottle, with the rinse vodka being returned to the distillery for re-distillation.
Once they’ve been filled, each bottle goes through one final series of checks to ensure the label, barcode and so on are aligned correctly and that everything is exactly as it should be.
This obsessive attention to detail ensures that every bottle of Absolut Vodka leaving the plant does so in Absolut perfect condition.
Distribution
The journey starts in our storage facility – one facility with two massive warehouses large enough to store 15,000 pallets or nine million bottles. About three weeks’ production!
From here, our vodka is distributed all around the world. 75% is shipped in containers by sea direct from port of Åhus, most of it via Bremerhaven and Hamburg in Germany. Most of our other closer exports are transported by truck direct to our Pernod Ricard customers. The final 1,5% is consumed domestically in Sweden itself, the home of Absolut Vodka.
TASTING NOTES
The Perfect Balance
Made in Åhus with winter wheat, pristine water and Swedish respect for our mother earth, Absolut Vodka has the perfect balance of character, taste and flavor.
Nose
The impeccable quality of our winter wheat is reflected in the rich and grainy nose.
Palate
Together, the specific strain of yeast used in the fermentation, the purifying copper used in the raw spirit distillation and our bespoke rectification system, which is designed to achieve the delicate balance between purity and character, result in a very smooth, clean and full-bodied palate, with a fresh, grainy character.
Finish
Complementing all these other qualities, our pristine groundwater contributes a greater mouthfeel, leading to a long, smooth and clean finish.