A chemicals trader, his son and an exhibition in 1891.

O.P. Anderson is a Swedish aquavit, the caraway-led spirit of the Nordic countries, and it is older than the name on its label. Swedish Wikipedia, citing the Vin- och sprithistoriska museet (the Swedish wine and spirits history museum), says it was launched for the Gothenburg Exhibition of 1891 under the name “Gammal Fin 1ma Aquavit” — the “1ma” to be read as “prima” — and that the firm which made it was O.P. Anderson & Son of Gothenburg. The drink is named after the man behind that firm, Olof Peter Anderson.

Swedish Wikipedia, citing a family history published in 1963, says Anderson came to Gothenburg in 1814, worked for a chemicals trader and set up on his own in 1823, dealing in chemicals and building materials. Systembolaget, the Swedish state retailer, gives a slightly different start in its product notes: it says he co-founded the trading firm O.P. & A.F. Anderson in 1825, a business that included spirit production. Both accounts agree on the next step. From the 1850s, Swedish Wikipedia says, Anderson ran the firm with his son Carl August, and it was then that the business concentrated on spirits.

It was Carl August who brought the aquavit to the exhibition. Systembolaget says the son launched it in 1891 as a tribute to his father, and that the spirit later took his father’s name. Swedish Wikipedia adds that drinkers called it “OP” long before that name reached the labels.

The family firm did not keep the recipe for long. In 1917 production was taken over by AB Vin- & Spritcentralen, the state company later known as Vin & Sprit, Swedish Wikipedia says, citing the museum. English Wikipedia’s article on Anora links the date to the introduction of the Bratt System, Sweden’s state-controlled alternative to prohibition.

Caraway, anise, fennel and oak.

The recipe is the brand’s most consistent asset. English and Swedish Wikipedia both describe O.P. Anderson as flavoured with caraway, anise and fennel and rested in oak. Systembolaget sets out the Swedish rule for the category: an aquavit must include caraway and/or dill, those spices must dominate the flavour, and it must be bottled at no less than 37.5% alcohol by volume. Swedish Wikipedia, citing Systembolaget’s product listing, calls O.P. Anderson the oldest and best-selling aquavit in Sweden.

The oak has a story of its own. When the brand moved to its present distillery in 2017, Altia, its owner at the time, said it had brought along nine oak casks of about 5,000 litres each, around a century old and first used for brandy, in which O.P. Anderson rests for six months before bottling. Older descriptions, quoted by English Wikipedia, give eight months in oak.

The name on the label has also travelled. A photograph of the 1891 label in Swedish Wikipedia shows the Gothenburg origin; the caption notes that later labels no longer say the drink comes from Gothenburg. The brand’s most visible recent design exercise was a collaboration. The Spirits Business reported in September 2021 that OP Anderson Omnipollo Stout, a limited edition of 3,600 bottles, had been made by the aquavit master blender Jonas Odland and Henok Fentie of the brewery Omnipollo, with a label by the artist Karl Grandin. Grandin told the magazine the team had reinterpreted each element of the classic OP Anderson label, keeping it close to the original “but in a different dimension.” Systembolaget today names Odland as the brand’s spice master.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all Nordic aquavit and spirits and Polish vodka names: Linie, Aalborg, O.P. Anderson, Brennivín, Koskenkorva, Sobieski and Soplica. Spirits brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from names that still carry a founder’s story to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a bar list.

A spirits brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its spirit is actually distilled and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirit is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Three owners in fifteen years, and a new home in the north.

The state era ended in 2008, when the Swedish government sold Vin & Sprit to Pernod Ricard. In a release dated 3 May 2010 it announced that it had completed the sale of a number of Swedish and Danish assets to the Finnish drinks company Altia, and English Wikipedia records that O.P. Anderson passed to Altia in 2010.

Altia gave the brand a new home. On 4 May 2017 it opened the O.P. Anderson Distillery in Matfors, in the municipality of Sundsvall in northern Sweden, run in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Unimedic. The company said all its Swedish aquavit production and maturation was moving there from Vin & Sprit’s old plant at Åhus in Skåne. Systembolaget lists O.P. Anderson, Gammal Norrlands Akvavit and Bäska Droppar among the drinks made at the distillery.

A further change of owner followed in 2021. Altia merged with the Norwegian group Arcus, and the merger was registered on 1 September 2021, creating Anora Group, headquartered in Helsinki. Ahead of the merger the companies agreed to sell seven spirits brands to Galatea, The Spirits Business reported; O.P. Anderson stayed with Anora, whose portfolio also includes Linie aquavit and Koskenkorva vodka. Systembolaget names Anora Sweden AB as the producer today.

The name needs a little care in searches. “O.P. Anderson” is first of all a person — Olof Peter Anderson, the Gothenburg merchant — and “Anderson” is a common Swedish surname, so the aquavit is easiest to find under its full name with the word aquavit.

For a design guide, O.P. Anderson shows how a spirit launched at a city exhibition can keep its founder’s initials through state ownership, a sale abroad and a move to the north of Sweden, with a recipe of caraway, anise and fennel as its constant. Compare Linie, the Norwegian aquavit, and Aalborg, the Danish akvavit. For this guide we use oak amber, cask brown and caraway green with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep O.P. Anderson’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.