bäsk (besk)
ingredient / ingredient-bask
ベスク
Bäsk (besk) is a traditional Swedish category of spirit: a distilled spirit flavored with wormwood (malört), or malörtsbrännvin. A Swedish Academy dictionary lists "besk" as a comparison reference alongside vermouth and absint. Jeppson’s Malört of Chicago is an example established in the United States through Swedish immigration.
Photographs (captions in Japanese)
Cultivated plants of wormwood (Artemisia absinthium). Bäsk (besk) refers to a distilled spirit flavored with this plant (malörtsbrännvin), but no photograph of a bäsk product itself was found on Commons, so a photograph of the plant used for flavoring was adopted as source material.
Raw materialShown: Artemisia absinthium (wormwood, malört)Part / state: Cultivated plant
Photo: David Monniaux / CC BY-SA 3.0 / original image / ledger's original image
Scope and provenance of the photo
Identification: Identified as labelled in the source. Not a photograph of the distilled spirit product bäsk itself. A plant photographed in the garden of the Musée de l'Absinthe in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
Image shown: The full-size file from Wikimedia Commons. No cropping or color changes by NIGAMI LAB. For display, a WebP capped at 1200 px wide is served; the ledger's original image can be checked from the link above.
On this page (10 sections)
Reading the bitterness
Svenska Akademiens ordböcker defines its headword 『2 besk』 (in translation: "besk, second headword") as a spirit flavored with wormwood (malört; brännvin kryddat med malört). The same dictionary’s SAOL word list paraphrases it as 『sup malörtsbrännvin』 (in translation: "a shot of wormwood-flavored spirit"). Bäsk/besk is thus listed as a word for this category of malörtsbrännvin.
In its entry for 『malört』 (in translation: "wormwood"), the same dictionary says the plant is used to flavor spirits (anv. bl.a. som brännvinskrydda), and lists absint (absinthe), 2besk (this entry), and vermouth as comparison references (JFR). The dictionary thus connects these distinct alcoholic drink categories through wormwood.
On a product page of Sweden’s state alcohol retailer, Systembolaget, Lennarts Bäsk Malörtsbrännvin (40% alcohol by volume, 200 ml) is classified under 『Akvavit & Kryddat brännvin』 (in translation: "Akvavit and flavored spirits"). Its tasting note says 『Kryddig, bitter smak med inslag av malört och pomerans』 (in translation: "Spicy, bitter taste with notes of wormwood and bitter orange"). However, this is the classification and sensory description of a single product, not representative of bäsk as a whole.
In the United States, the official brand site says 『Jeppson's Malört』 (in translation: "Jeppson’s Wormwood"), named for Swedish immigrant Carl Jeppson, began legal production and sales in Chicago after Prohibition ended in 1933. According to the same site, the brand and company name were transferred to Chicago’s CH Distillery in 2018, and production resumed in Chicago in 2019.
Sources for this overview
besk（見出し語）— Svenska Akademiens ordböcker（SAOL/SO/SAOB）
Checked for this overview: Confirmed the SO/SAOL definition of 『2 besk』 (in translation: "besk, second headword") and the SAOL paraphrase.
malört（見出し語）— Svenska Akademiens ordböcker（SAOL/SO/SAOB）
Checked for this overview: Confirmed that the JFR field under malört lists absint, 2besk, and vermouth together.
Lennarts Bäsk Malörtsbrännvin — 商品ページ
Checked for this overview: Confirmed the Systembolaget product-page classification. / Confirmed the tasting note on the same product page.
Checked for this overview: Confirmed the official site’s immigration account, 2018 transfer, and 2019 resumption of production.
Other names: besk (sv), bäsk (sv, identification medium), malörtsbrännvin (sv)
Follow the connections
bäsk (besk) →is flavoured with→ wormwood
Hypotheses and recipe candidates for this entry are on the Japanese page.
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Composition and content (1)
Scope: A general definition in a Swedish dictionary (SO/SAOL)
Note: The SO dictionary's entry for 『malört』 lists, as comparison references (JFR), absint (absinthe), 2besk (this entity), and vermouth side by side, corroborating at the dictionary level that wormwood is the common ingredient running through the 3 types absinthe, vermouth, and besk (a record linked to H14). Connected to the same ingredient-wormwood as the existing ingredient-vermouth / ingredient-absinthe.
Show data
ingredient-bask —is_flavoured_with→ ingredient-wormwoodSensory (1)
Scope: Sweden. The tasting note for Lennarts Bäsk Malörtsbrännvin on Systembolaget’s official product page.
Note: This is an official retailer tasting note, not measurements by a standardized sensory panel. The description concerns one brand and cannot be generalized to all besk.
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ingredient-bask —has_sensory_attribute→ (the claim sentence above)Safety and regulation (1)
Scope: Sweden. Systembolaget product page for Lennarts Bäsk Malörtsbrännvin, 40% alcohol by volume and 200 ml.
Note: This is a state retailer’s product classification. It does not assert legal identity with the EU Akvavit category (the existing ingredient-akvavit entry, category 24). Systembolaget holds a state monopoly on Swedish alcohol retail; the classification is recorded for its public character.
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ingredient-bask —is_classified_by→ (the claim sentence above)Culture (2)
Scope: Swedish. Svenska Akademiens ordböcker (SO/SAOL, 2026 edition), noun headword 『2 besk』 (in translation: "besk, second headword").
Note: A dictionary-level word meaning, not a compositional analysis of any individual product.
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ingredient-bask —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ (the claim sentence above)Scope: Chicago, Illinois, United States. The brand’s official malort.com website; the company’s own account.
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ingredient-bask —has_history→ (the claim sentence above)