the embassy

There is something slightly absurd in the fact that my standard watering hole in Stockholm bears the name ”Ardbeg Embassy”. An inside wall is covered with a gigantic wall paper featuring a distillery  on an island off the scottish coast. The text is ”Ardbeg – Stockholm Embassy”.

On the opposite side there is another large photo from the same island. Blocks of some brown stuff dominate that picture and also here the image is partly covered by text: ”Release the Peat”.

Why? Why has scottish malt whiskey so penetrated Stockholm that I find a pub in Stockholm that has a better selection of malts, than the local, and only, pub in Port Ellen, Islay, just a kilometer or two from the actual Ardbeg destillery.

I first encountered the brown, smoky poison of the scottish countryside in the mid eighties. At that time the state run ”Systembolaget”, that handles all legal alcoholic beverages in Sweden, carried only four malts. The only one worth the paper bills are printed on was Glenfiddish.

Abroad however you could buy bottles of the water of life and in August 1986 I remember carrying a nice bottle of Laphroaig into my first ever flat on the South Side of Stockholm.

If you know your malts, you know that starting off with Laphroaig perhaps isn’t the wisest of choices. The smoke hits you first. Then the taste and after that one-two punsch you try to catch your breath, whilst putting the bottle back into a cupboard and return to the most dreadful of non-drinks – a lager.

That bottle lasted for two years and you might think that I had learned my lesson and return to weaker drinks.

But somehow, after that bottle, nothing else tasted the same. Everything else had a tameness that made me long for the smokey stuff. I was caught.

And, I admit, I thought I was cool. In those days I was slightly (chough) younger and coolness was important. Scottish malts was my thing. Something I had discovered. I was unique.

Strangely enough – all other swedish men in my age bracket were unique in that same malty way. Far from being sole in my pursuits, I found myself more mainstream than ever. In the nineties and noughties the bars and restaurants were flooded with whiskey. And of course nothing blended. Oh no! Anything younger than 18 years from a side of the way barn of scottish remoteness was persona non grata at the discussions of the swedish male of ten years ago. All right… of the swedish middle aged man. The very middle aged man.

One could rebel. One could start on a new path. Seek the road less travelled by. Not to conform to type.

Some of my friends have. Some years ago I was suddenly offered sometihing that would have been unheard of just ten years ago. I was offered – bourbon…

Yes. The sweet american bathtub drink that was invented… well, actually I don’t care when.

And I realized that I was becoming non cool. There was nothing cutting edge in my malt habits. Quite the contrary. The alcohol avant garde had moved on. What was I to do?

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Last summer I joined the tour. I visited four destilleries in Scotland. Three of those situated on the isle of Islay – home to the most peaty of all whiskeys. I listened to the guides and drank the stuff. The staff told us that, aside from the natives (aka british), the largest nationality among the visitors were… the swedes.

So here I am. Looking at a wall of scottish delight, pondering the ways of the world of alcohol and my own uncoolness. Feels kind of… well… good.  The fact is, that malt whiskey is so common in Sweden that one of the best places to find it – world wide - is right at my doorstep.

On the other side of the counter I see two bottles of ”Port Ellen”, an Islay whiskey that went out of production some twenty years ago. It is ”slightly” expensive. In the mirror behind the bottles I catch the sight of my receding hairline.

I’m home…

PS. I highly recommend not to wear leather motorcycle gear to destillery showings. It squeeks more than one would imagine… DS.

the immigrant

I lived in London for two years. I remember the first night I arrived in Richmond, the lovely but somewhat pricey, suburb I arrived in on Friday the 13th of August 2010. On Richmond Green some men dressed in white performed a peculiar dance involving a ball and two very small fences. I was a bit scared but soon I found a public house and took care of my anxieties in a, I later found, truly british fashion. And I started to blog. I sat by the counter of ”The Old Ship” and wrote tidbits in swedish to my back home friends whilst a very small, but lovely, polish waitress talked to me, thus becoming my first human contact in England.

But after two years I moved home and in Whitby, north England, I ended my blog on a somewhat sentimental note. I think I wrote something about the wonders of the english countryside – think Lake District.

But since I moved home I thought there wouldn’t be much to write about. After all, I moved to a country and city where I had lived for more than 40 years. I didn’t think anything could go wrong. I was mistaken.

When moving from Sweden one has to tell the swedish tax authorities that you are moving away. This had caused a lot of problems. Since I still owned a property in Stockholm I had to pay taxes in Sweden, but since I didn’t live in Sweden I never got to know exactly how much I owed. To complicate matters I sold my part of a summer house to a sister and the swedish goverment still wouldn’t send me my tax return.

Anyway. In July 2012 I strode into the tax office in central Stockholm. Since Sweden has a centralised authority for, well, everything, I thought that this would be a piece of cake. Well, at least after the wait for my number, which took, well, ok, over an hour.

Finally my number comes up and I am informed that I have to bring my passport…

It may sound stupid of me not to bring my passport, but if your a swedish citizen in Sweden you never use it. The driving licence works everywhere.

But since I am now moving into Sweden I have to bring the passport like everybody else.

I sigh, pull a new number, go back home and come back in an hour. Only another half hour later it is me again.

Approximately 100 000 migrants move to Sweden every year. At the same time 50 000 move out. As you would expect many of these are swedes moving from Sweden and then back again. In fact, the largest immigrant group to Sweden every year is… the swedes.

The immigration form at the tax office is however not prepared for this. After several pages of questions of why I am moving to Swede, where I plan to live, who my employer is etcetera, etcetera, I finish the form, sign to dotted line, show my passport and… I am back.

Almost.

Two months later I sit in the chair at my dentists. She looks at her computer and then turns to me in a worried smile: ”You are not registered at ’Försäkringskassan’ (the swedish equivalence of NHS). This may cost you…”

To make a long story short, Sweden may be centralised to the extent that if you move from Sweden, there is just one short form to fill out, but if you try to move back, there are two.

And where is that tax return? In december I had lived in Sweden for half a year, I knew I had not payed my property tax. Isn’t that due before January? But how much should I pay.

So finally I found some time, brought my passport and went back to the the same office. And after a renwed wait the nice lady found the form for Försäkringskassan (why couldn’t they find this in July?). She also found me in her computer and informed me of the money I owed the swedish government. Two days later the real tax return reached me and I realised that I didn’t have to pay everything before the end of the year.

So everything was sorted. Half a year too late, but still…

Two weeks ago, mid March 2013 I was back at my dentists. She turns to me in a worried smile: ”Are you sure you have dealt properly with ’Försäkringskassan’…?”

Uh-oh…

(to be continued)