The surprisingly entertaining Museum of Spirits is dedicated to Sweden's complicated relationship with alcohol, as mediated over the years by the state-run monopoly System Bolaget. The slick space, in two 18th-century naval buildings, covers the history, manufacture and consumption of all kinds of booze, plus holiday traditions, drinking songs, food pairings and so on. Best of all, you can combine your visit with a tasting kit (Skr200), including various flavours of liquor to be sampled at specified points.
There's a 'hangover room' with a head-throbbing soundtrack and painful light, as well as a small theater in which the seating angle and first-person-perspective film make you feel slightly drunk. Multimedia displays dispense titbits about the alcohol industry ('The first entirely Swedish whiskey was a thundering fiasco', for example). There are also well-staged temporary exhibits (recently, a display of record-sleeve art and 'Swedish Sin', about varying cultural attitudes toward sex). The Absolut Art gallery displays collected works on the obvious theme by the likes of Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Guided tours in English are available daily at 3pm.
