Bornholm has always done things a little differently. The sun shines more hours here than anywhere else in Denmark, its cliffs are older than the rest of the country combined, and its food culture is built around craft rather than mass production — smoked herring, locally baked bread, small-batch beer, and increasingly, Danish gin, vodka and akvavit distilled from the island's own ingredients. None of that is a coincidence. It's a direct result of what the island itself provides.

CharacterAn island built on quality and craft

Locals often call Bornholm the "sunshine island," and it's more than a tourist slogan — it genuinely gets more hours of sunshine than anywhere else in Denmark, which shapes everything from the fruit and berries to the general mood of the place. But what really defines Bornholm is a stubborn respect for craft: its potters, glassblowers, smokehouses and breweries are known well beyond Denmark's borders, and that same mindset is now taking hold in spirits. Bornholm isn't somewhere you visit to tick off one landmark. It's somewhere you go to experience what happens when people take the time to do things properly.

LandscapeHow the island's nature shapes what's distilled

Bornholm's geography is unusual for Denmark: rocky coastline in the north, sandy beaches in the south, and an interior of forest, heath and farmland that feels a world away from the rest of the country. Salty Baltic wind reaches deep inland, summer daylight lingers longer than elsewhere, and the soil shifts from sandy to stony within a few kilometres. Together they create a microclimate that gives local ingredients — juniper, sea buckthorn, hemp, sloe — a sharper, more concentrated character than you'll find elsewhere in the country.

That combination is exactly what Wild Distillery builds its production around. Their ENE series uses organic Bornholm ingredients like sea buckthorn from Svaneke and hemp from Østermarie, while the rarer WILD Botanicals Gin is made entirely from wild juniper that Master Distiller Henrik Nerst hand-forages himself in Ravnedalen — a valley near the island's northern tip, under special permit from the Danish Nature Agency. Because the weather changes from year to year, so does the flavour. No two vintages of WILD Botanicals taste quite the same.

The experienceWild Distillery as part of the Bornholm trip

A visit to Wild Distillery in Aakirkeby sits naturally alongside Hammershus, the coloured houses of Gudhjem, and the island's celebrated smokehouses. The distillery is centrally located and open year-round, with a shop and showroom where you can always taste your way through the range — and in summer you can join a guided Masterclass (check the tour page for upcoming dates), where Henrik Nerst leads the tour himself and tells the story behind each product, followed by a tasting of several gins and three different Gin & Tonics.

What visitors usually take away isn't just a bottle of gin — it's a clearer sense of how Bornholm's landscape, from rocky coast to forest floor, ends up defining what's in the glass. That's the kind of experience that turns a trip to Bornholm into more than just a couple of days at the beach.

Read more about visiting Wild Distillery →