HIMKOK

“Sustainability means that we have a future, and if we’re not sustainable than we don´t,” says Odd Strandbakken, bar manager of the world’s most sustainable bar, HIMKOK. Located in the center of Oslo, it consists of multiple floors. On the lower level you can find their mini distillery, where they produce more than 80% of the spirit they serve in-house with a zero-waste philosophy. Local producers are used to source ingredients and botanicals, allowing HIMKOK to explore different aspects of Norwegian culture and showcasing true Norwegian flavors. By having their own distillery, where Aquavit, Gin and Vodka, among others, are produced, HIMKOK is able to create drinks and products with a Nordic taste. They also ferment their own wine, mead and kefir. 

Being a sustainable bar, HIMKOK´s focus is not only on sourcing locally, but also on cutting down on energy usage. For example, the distillery is powered by renewable hydro energy and by producing their own spirits, they cut down on drink miles substantially. “We reuse all the bottles for our own spirits. There are no bottles that are thrown away,” Strandbakken explains. HIMKOK´s sustainability focus has also brought them to minimize waste in quite surprising ways. They use aquafaba (chickpea water) instead of egg whites. It’s a lot more sustainable because it doesn’t really have an expiration date (unlike eggs) and you are not stuck with a by-product (such as the egg yolk). But what about the chickpeas? Strandbakken has a solution for this: work with Turkish or Indian restaurants to give them the chickpeas or get the aquafaba from them.

Not only is this cocktail bar on the forefront when it comes to sustainability, it also has a place in the top 50 list of best bars worldwide. Strandbakken has a theory that the quality of the water in a country affects the taste of the cocktail. For this he uses the concept of terroir after he noticed that none of the drinks he made outside of Norway tasted the same. Terroir is normally used when speaking of grapes to describe the combination of factors like geographic (i.e. climate, soil, topography, horticulture) and abstract (i.e. culture, relationship with the land), resulting in a unique taste of a certain wine. It makes sense to apply terroir to cocktails, after all, ice is the most important ingredient in any cold drink, used both for dilution and chilling. It’s all about that local flavor, when it comes to food and drinks. “I want to try the local things,” he says. “I’m not going to Japan to have pizza, for example. I want to go to Italy to have pizza. And the same goes for cocktails. I’d never focus on Mexican flavors in the Nordics because I won’t get the best produce, or even the best tequila or rum. I’d go to Mexico for that.”

Location: Storgata 27, 0184 Oslo, Norway

Opening hours: Sunday to Thursday 5 PM - 3 AM
Friday - Saturday 3 PM - 3 AM

Phone: +47 22 42 22 02

Email: booking@himkok.no

Website: https://www.himkok.no/home

Instagram: @himkok.oslo

Main picture: The Worlds 50 best