Top 10 Distilleries in Iceland
Iceland has no ancient distilling tradition — for most of the twentieth century the country lived under near-total prohibition, and beer was illegal until 1989. Prohibition arrived in 1915 after a national referendum, and although wine and spirits were gradually let back in over the following decades, beer stronger than 2.25 percent stayed banned until 1 March 1989. That date is now celebrated every year as Beer Day, or Bjórdagurinn, when bars across Reykjavik mark the end of seventy-four dry years. Yet out of that austere history has grown one of Europe's most distinctive young spirits scenes, built on extraordinary natural ingredients: glacial meltwater, geothermal energy, foraged Arctic botanicals, and barley grown at the very edge of where the crop will ripen, at latitudes between roughly 64 and 66 degrees North. The national spirit remains the bracing caraway schnapps Brennivín, but around it a wave of gin, vodka, and whisky producers has emerged since the licensing laws loosened. These ten map distilling across the island, from the capital region to the volcanic south.
1. Eimverk Distillery, Garðabær (Reykjavik area)
Eimverk, run by the Thorkelsson family in Garðabær just outside Reykjavik, distils Flóki, Iceland's first single malt whisky. The barley is grown in Iceland near the Arctic Circle, where the short, cool summer barely ripens the grain and yields are a fraction of those further south, giving the spirit an unusually concentrated character. Part of the malt is smoked with Icelandic sheep dung in the old tradition, once the only fuel available on a treeless island, lending Flóki a smoky, earthy note quite unlike peated Scotch. The cold, dry climate means slow, gentle maturation, and the distillery bottles young expressions at cask strength as well as sheep-dung-smoked and barrel-finished editions. Eimverk also makes the acclaimed Vor gin and an aquavit using foraged Icelandic botanicals, and as a fully grain-to-glass operation it is the heart of the country's craft movement.
2. Reyka Vodka, Borgarnes
Reyka, distilled at Borgarnes in west Iceland about an hour's drive north of Reykjavik, was the country's first vodka and is made using glacial spring water and filtered through lava rock drawn from a nearby field of cooled volcanic stone. The distillery runs almost entirely on geothermal energy tapped from the ground beneath it, making Reyka one of the few vodkas in the world produced with renewable heat and steam. Owned by the Scottish family firm William Grant & Sons since the brand launched in 2005, it put Icelandic spirits on the global map and remains the island's best-known international export, sold across Europe and North America.
3. Thoran Distillery / Ölgerðin, Reykjavik
Ölgerðin Egill Skallagrímsson, Iceland's largest drinks company founded in 1913, produces the classic Brennivín — the black-labelled caraway-and-angelica akvavit whose stark label earned it the nickname "Svarti dauði," or Black Death. The dark colouring was originally a deliberate scare tactic from the temperance era, meant to discourage drinkers rather than tempt them, and the name stuck. Brennivín is the definitive Icelandic spirit, distilled from grain and flavoured chiefly with caraway, and it is traditionally drunk ice-cold in small shots with fermented shark, or hákarl, at the midwinter Þorrablót feast that runs through the old month of Þorri in January and February. The pairing tempers the pungent ammonia bite of the cured shark, and the ritual has become a point of national pride.
4. 64° Reykjavik Distillery, Reykjavik
64° Reykjavik Distillery is a craft producer specialising in liqueurs and spirits made from foraged Icelandic ingredients — crowberries, blueberries, birch, rhubarb, and angelica gathered from the heaths and lava fields around the capital. Named for the island's latitude of roughly 64 degrees North, it captures the flavours of the Icelandic landscape in small-batch bottlings, including gin, aquavit, and fruit liqueurs. Many of its botanicals are picked by hand in the short Arctic summer, when the midnight sun drives an intense burst of growth across the tundra.
5. Foss Distillery, Reykjavik
Foss Distillery produces Björk and Birkir, a liqueur and a schnapps made from Icelandic birch — both the wood and the sap of the downy birch, Betula pubescens, the main native tree of an island that lost most of its forests to settlement and grazing more than a thousand years ago. The schnapps is infused with birch wood while the liqueur draws on the tree's sweet spring sap, giving woody, resinous, faintly sweet flavours found nowhere else. These are among the most uniquely Icelandic spirits, tasting of the country's sparse northern woodlands, and they have become a fixture of duty-free shelves at Keflavík airport as edible souvenirs of the landscape.
6. Þoran / Himbrimi Gin makers
Himbrimi (Icelandic for the great northern diver, or loon) is a craft gin brand using Icelandic water and botanicals, part of the growing cluster of small gin producers using the island's pure water and foraged herbs to build a recognisably Nordic style.
7. Marberg and craft gin producers
A wave of Icelandic gins, including Marberg and others, lean on Arctic thyme, angelica, and other tundra botanicals. The combination of soft glacial water and intensely aromatic foraged plants gives Icelandic gin a clean, herbal, distinctly northern signature.
8. Westfjords craft producers
The remote Westfjords, Iceland's most rugged and least populated region, host small distilling and brewing experiments tied to local tourism. A great peninsula of fjords and table mountains in the far northwest, the area is connected to the rest of the country by a single narrow neck of land and sees only a fraction of the island's visitors. The pristine water running off its highlands and the sheer isolation make this corner of the island a natural home for tiny artisan operations, often working alongside fishing villages and guesthouses.
9. Akureyri and northern producers
Akureyri, the capital of the north on Eyjafjörður fjord, anchors a small northern drinks scene. The town's breweries and emerging distillers tap the cold northern climate and clean water of Iceland's second urban centre.
10. Geothermal and farm distillers, south Iceland
Across the volcanic south, near the geothermal fields and the great waterfalls of the Golden Circle — the famous loop that takes in Þingvellir, the original Geysir, and the thundering Gullfoss — small farm-based producers experiment with barley, botanicals, and the abundant geothermal energy. Many south-coast farms already grow barley and use geothermal heat for greenhouses and homes, so turning that infrastructure toward distilling is a natural step. This green-energy distilling is a uniquely Icelandic proposition, turning the island's geology directly into spirit production and drawing on heat and water that elsewhere would cost a fortune in fuel.
Icelandic distilling in context
Iceland's distilling identity is young, clean, and rooted in its extreme geography. The bracing Brennivín remains the national emblem, but the real story is the new wave — Eimverk's Arctic-barley whisky and Vor gin, Reyka's lava-filtered vodka, and the birch and berry spirits that taste of the tundra. Glacial water, geothermal power, and foraged botanicals are the shared signature. The map shows the spread from Reykjavik and Borgarnes to the Westfjords and the volcanic south.
Explore on the map
An Icelandic distillery trip naturally centres on the Reykjavik area, where Eimverk and several craft producers cluster, with Reyka at Borgarnes a short drive north along the west coast. Use the interactive map to plan a route around the island, and see Iceland on the map to place each producer against the glaciers, lava fields, and geothermal energy that define its spirits.