The reasoning behind the original Fjording recipe
We needed, and wanted, to make a caramel version. That's the dominating taste within the cream liqueur category today and where the volume lays in terms of consumption and sales.
Caramel itself can be a real treat. However, it's seldom very exciting. I felt we needed to mix things up a little. Bringing in an extra flavor in order to give the product a more interesting and natural touch.
Here we ended up introducing the hazelnut taste. We believe the distinct characteristics of hazelnut brought more balance to the drink. And gave the Fjording-liqueur the signature we were looking for. Especially in smell and aftertaste.
An important bonus was that hazelnut flavor resonated well with our overall product strategy and visions about Nordic Cream.
The Nordic Cream term
From the start, Fjording had a plan of not only making new cream liqueurs, but also introducing a new category of cream liqueurs. So that the products could be better distinguished from the established international alternatives.
Therefore we introduced the term Nordic Cream: Cream liqueurs based on classical Nordic spirits like potato vodka and aquavit - and flavored with Nordic berries, fruits, nuts and other regional ingredients. Made as pure and natural as possible.
Potential future competitors who follows the same ambitious principles are welcome to use the Nordic Cream label. It's not protected.
- Watch out, Irish Cream!
Hazelnut - a traditional Nordic sweet
The first settlers in our part of the world had hazelnuts as a vital part of their food supply. It's one of the oldest "candy" we know of, and it's still used as a stand alone sweet - especially by (really) grown ups during Christmas. To most people the nut is known as an ingredient in popular products, like Freia’s Firkløver and Helnøtt chocolates and Orkla's Nugatti.
Personally I remember the joy of cracking nuts when visiting my grandparents during Christmas and New Year in my childhood. I can also memorize playing around in "haslerunnjar" (what we call areas with hazel treas in Nordfjord) during summer. However, those areas are mostly gone now, due to the dominating and aggressive spruce tree - or gran as we call it in Norwegian. Kinda sad really.
Wanna «go nuts»? Then we suggest trying our Fjording Hazelnut Caramel.