Brännvin is the Swedish term for liquor distilled from potatoes, grain, or (formerly) wood cellulose. It can be plain and colourless, or flavoured with herbs and spices. The term includes vodka and akvavit, but akvavit is always flavored. Beverages labelled brännvin are usually plain and have an alcohol content between 30% and 38%. The word brännvin means "burn[t] (distilled) wine". It is cognate with English brandy[wine], Danish brændevin, Dutch brandewijn, German Branntwein, and Icelandic brennivín. A small glass of brännvin is called a snaps (cf. German schnapps), and may be accompanied by a snapsvisa, a drinking song.
In Chicago, a local producer makes a bitter brännvin (beskbrännvin), called Jeppson's Malört. "Malört" is the Swedish word for the plant Artemisia absinthium, wormwood, often used as an ingredient in absinthe.
Brännvin was central to the semi-mythical world in the songs of Sweden's bard, Carl Michael Bellman. For example, in Fredman's Epistle no. 1, the first verse begins: