WHAT IS BËSK?
Bësk is a Swedish family of wormwood-based spirits dating back hundreds of years. The word means bitter — the same job amaro does in Italian. It is a category, not a brand.
Letherbee produces Bësk, Fernet and Absinthe Américaine — three traditions built on bitterness and/or wormwood, from Sweden, Italy and Switzerland/France. Bësk is the Swedish one.
BËSK AND ABSINTHE ARE COUSINS
Both are built on wormwood. "Absinthe" is the French translation of the same word and shares a root with the plant's Latin name, Artemisia absinthium. Both began as folk medicine for digestive complaints. Bësk originated in Sweden hundreds of years ago; absinthe in Switzerland in the 1700s.
Their histories split at prohibition. Switzerland banned absinthe in 1910, most of western Europe and the United States followed by 1915, and absinthe was not legal again in the US until 2007. Bësk has never been banned — not in the United States, not anywhere. There is some nuance to what was actually banned - the use of wormwood vs. the term absinthe…..
LETHERBEE HAS MADE BËSK SINCE 2013
It started at a bar. Robert Franklin Haynes III — Robby, a bartender at The Violet Hour and a friend from the Chicago music scene — had built a recipe and was pouring it for his customers, who kept asking for it. He came to Letherbee about producing it commercially. We have made it ever since.
LETHERBEE BËSK
100 proof. 750 mL.
Wormwood, gentian root, grapefruit peel, juniper, star anise, elderflower.
Grapefruit peel arrives first, then wormwood and gentian root underneath it. Juniper, star anise and elderflower sit further back. Grassy herbal bitterness through the middle, bitter finish.
Order Letherbee Bësk
HOW TO DRINK IT
Neat, if you want it straight.
But Bësk earns its keep as a cocktail modifier — the extra-bitter ingredient you reach for when a drink needs pushing over the edge into new territory.
A splash in a gin and tonic. The simplest way in, and the fastest way to understand what it does.
Anything with grapefruit. Our bësk leads with grapefruit peel, so it belongs in a Paloma — the botanicals and the drink are already pointed at each other.
And a piña colada. We're serious. Bitterness and coconut do something to each other that has to be tasted to be argued with.