Beer & Spirits

Iceland as a whole did not seem to be a large drinking community, but If your 20 years of age or older and you want to enjoy a night out there are bars in the capitol, you should! We did find beer and wine at most restaurants, but we had to explore a little to find something a little stronger. Most of the hotels had nice little bars, which if your looking for convenience then that’s fine, but we were more interested in culture and exploring what Reykjavik had to offer us. Additionally, one very clear difference between Icelandic bars and American bars is the selections. Several times it was either Gull or some other choice for beer. I didnt mind though, as I particularly like Gull.

Below outlined are some names of what we saw, sampled and purchased. We didn’t see much in the “Spirits” category until we were in the airport duty free shop, except for Reyka. Reyka is a delicious vodka, that is actually available in most larger US liquor stores.  We will write another article about the bars of Reykjavik, where to find them and which areas you may want to avoid! ( find the link to the article below, or click here! )

Beer

• BríÓ
• Boli
• Gull ( pronounced (“ghoul – k” ))
• Viking

Spirits

• Lava - bitter “filtered through lava” 20% by vol
• Reyka - small batch vodka 40%
• Svartur - soprano 20%
• Opal - vodkaskot 27 %
• Brennivin - Icelandic schnapps 36,5%

Wine

While we visited Iceland we did opt in for wine a few times ( ‘cuz, why not right? ) but we were never offered anything local. So this begs the question: Where is the wine in Iceland? We don’t know.. We drank beer most of the time because it was simply available. When wine was available it was typically generic.

Next > BARS – Where to visit