Finland's Complicated Love Affair with Alcohol

Finland ran prohibition from 1919 to 1932. It ended after a referendum in which 70.5% of those who voted backed abolition outright.

Nearly a century later the country is still negotiating the terms. The rules are strict, occasionally absurd and have changed twice in the last two years.

The same qualities that make Finland interesting in general show up here: stubborn independence, a willingness to do things differently and a set of Finnish personality traits applied to a licensing regime.

1. Homer Simpson would not like Finland

No Finnish law mentions cartoons. What the law says is that alcohol cannot be marketed to minors, and it falls to the supervisory authority to decide what that means in practice.

In 2011 it decided it meant Duff Beer. The Simpsons is not dubbed here and has never been sold to Finnish children, but the cartoon association alone was enough. The label was banned under threat of a 50,000 euro fine and Duff left the shelves at the start of 2012. Homer would have to drink something else.

2. Nobody can hand out a free sample

In most industries a free sample is the obvious way to get someone to try your product. Alcohol cannot be served in Finland without a licence, so handing out a taste at a public event is not on the table.

Small producers feel this most. Microbreweries have been able to sell their own beer from their own premises since 2018, which helped, but a stall at a summer festival still cannot pour anyone a thimbleful to find out whether they like it.

3. The Long Drink was invented for tourists

The 1952 Helsinki Olympics posed a logistical problem. Organisers were expecting up to 70,000 foreign visitors in a country with very few bars and not nearly enough bartenders to serve them.

The answer came from the state alcohol monopoly, working with Hartwall. Two pre-mixed bottled drinks went on sale for the Games: gin with grapefruit soda, and brandy with Pommac.

The brandy one was quietly dropped in the 1970s. The gin one stayed, at around 5.5%, and lonkero is now one of the country's most recognisable exports.

4. The thing in your pocket is written into the law

Take out your phone. The apps on it where you post, share and like are named, in effect, in Finnish alcohol legislation, and Finland was the first country in the world to put them there. Since January 2015 social media has been written into the Alcohol Act.

That is the answer, if you arrived here wondering what Finland got to before anyone else. Not the beer. The apps.

The amendment stops alcohol brands running competitions, games and lotteries on their channels, sharing anything their customers have made and producing content designed to be passed around. The wording is broad enough that a good deal of ordinary online promotion sits in restricted territory. A brewery in Finland can post a photo of its beer. It cannot ask you to share it.

A country that voted alcohol back in by seventy per cent, then spent ninety years writing rules about it.

5. The rules have just changed twice

For years the line was simple: anything above 5.5% came from Alko, the state monopoly. That is no longer true.

Since 10 June 2024, shops, kiosks and petrol stations can sell fermented drinks up to 8% ABV. That covers beer, cider and some wine. Drinks made by other methods, which means ready-to-drink mixes and long drinks, are still capped at 5.5%.

Parliament approved a second reform on 23 June 2026 by 98 votes to 77. The first provisions came into force on 3 July. Alko may now open on Sundays and began doing so in a limited number of stores that month, and the law sets up a licence system for delivering alcohol to people's homes.

The delivery part is not running yet. Licence applications open on 3 November 2026 and the first legal deliveries can happen from 3 January 2027, between nine in the morning and nine at night, to someone who is present and can prove their age. A country that ran prohibition within living memory has agreed, in principle, to let wine arrive at the door.

A country that ran prohibition within living memory has agreed, in principle, to let wine arrive at the door.

6. Kalsarikännit is a national institution

Kalsarikännit is the practice of drinking at home, alone, in your underwear, with no intention of going anywhere. Finland has a word for it and in December 2015 the Ministry for Foreign Affairs gave it an emoji in the national set.

It is not framed as a problem or a joke at the drinker's expense. It is a legitimate way to spend an evening, and the absence of any plan is the entire appeal.

How much do Finns actually drink?

Less than the reputation suggests and less every year. In 2025, recorded consumption, meaning everything sold in shops, Alko and licensed venues, came to 6.9 litres of pure alcohol per person aged 15 and over, or 33.3 million litres nationally. That was down 4.5% on 2024 and the lowest recorded level since the 1970s.

That figure does not capture drink carried in from abroad. The last comparable estimate, for 2024, put 58% of traveller imports as coming from Estonia or the ferries running between the two countries.

THL, the national health institute, changed how it measures those imports at the start of 2025 and is not publishing a total consumption figure for 2025 to 2027 as a result. The last complete number is 8.3 litres for 2024. Anyone quoting a precise national total for last year is quoting an old one.

Anyone quoting a precise national total for last year is quoting an old one.

Frequently asked questions

What are the alcohol laws in Finland?

Shops, kiosks and petrol stations may sell fermented drinks up to 8% ABV, a limit raised from 5.5% in June 2024. Ready-to-drink mixes and long drinks remain capped at 5.5%. Anything stronger comes from Alko, the state monopoly, which since July 2026 may also open on Sundays. The legal drinking age is 18 for milder drinks and 20 for spirits.

Can you get alcohol delivered in Finland?

Not yet. Parliament approved home delivery on 23 June 2026 and the first provisions came into force on 3 July, but delivery licence applications only open on 3 November 2026 and the first legal deliveries can take place from 3 January 2027. The same reform clarifies cross-border distance selling from online shops based in the EU or EEA.

Why is alcohol expensive in Finland?

High excise duties, set deliberately to hold consumption down, plus an Alko monopoly on stronger drinks that removes competitive pricing. Many Finns still buy on trips to Estonia, which accounted for well over half of all alcohol carried into the country by travellers in the last comparable figures.

What is kalsarikännit?

Drinking at home alone in your underwear with no intention of going out. It is a recognised part of Finnish life rather than a confession, and Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs published an emoji for it in its national set in December 2015.

What is the national drink of Finland?

The Long Drink, lonkero in Finnish. A pre-mixed gin and grapefruit soda created for the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, it has become a widely recognised symbol of Finnish drinking culture.

Still figuring it out

Alcohol has a real place in Finnish social life, and Finland has spent a long time working out how to allow for that alongside some serious public health concerns.

The result is a body of law that is detailed, occasionally counterintuitive and still moving.

101 Very Finnish Problems began as a list of observations about Finnish life. It became a book because the observations kept coming.

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