Aleholm Hand Made Stainless Steel Viking Tankard with Etched Mjolnir & Riveted Bands | 20 fl oz Capacity | Leather Belt Hanger Included | Groomsmen Gift | RK-1693

This is a stainless steel drinking tankard with a Mjolnir hammer etched into the front panel, three raised bands around the body set with domed rivets, and a heavy cast handle. It comes with a black leather belt hanger, a simple loop and buckle that takes the handle so the tankard rides on your hip at a feast, a market or a camp instead of being put down somewhere and lost.

Metal drinking vessels have a longer Norse history than most people expect. Horn is the famous one, but the wealthy graves of the Viking age turn up wooden cups with silver mounts, glass beakers traded up from the Rhineland, and bronze and copper alloy bowls. What they all share is a shape that sits low and wide, because a drinking vessel in a hall was passed and shared rather than nursed. This tankard keeps that squat proportion, wider at the base than at the rim, which is also the reason it does not tip when a table gets knocked.

Each tankard is finished, etched and assembled by hand in a Czech Republic workshop, and the leather hanger is cut, punched and riveted here as well. It ships with the hanger and a care card.

Specifications

What the hammer on the front actually means

Mjolnir is Thor’s hammer, and it is the single most common piece of Norse religious jewellery ever found. More than a thousand hammer pendants have been recovered across Scandinavia, England, Ireland, Iceland, Russia and beyond. What is worth knowing is that the hammer was not only a weapon symbol. In the written sources Thor uses Mjolnir to hallow, to make a thing formally sacred. In the poem Thrymskvida the hammer is brought out to bless a marriage, and it is laid in the bride’s lap. Mjolnir was raised over newborns and over the dead as well as swung at giants.

That is why a hammer on a drinking vessel is not a mismatch. The oath cup and the hallowing hammer belong to the same set of ideas. A vessel with a hammer on it is a vessel you swear on, which is more or less exactly what a wedding party or a group of friends does with it now, whether they think of it in those terms or not. The etched hammer here carries a knotwork infill in the head and a plain tapering shaft, the standard Scandinavian form rather than a fantasy long handled version.

The steel, and why the inside is bare

The body is food grade stainless steel, brushed rather than mirror polished so it does not turn into a fingerprint magnet. Stainless matters here for a practical reason. Beer and cider are acidic, and an acidic liquid sitting in copper, brass or unlined pewter picks up metal taste and, with copper, can leach in quantities you do not want. Stainless does not react, which is why commercial brewing runs on it.

The inside is left as bare steel with no lacquer, coating or plating. That is deliberate. A coated interior looks tidy for a year and then chips, and once it chips you cannot see what is happening underneath it. Bare stainless can be scrubbed, inspected and used for a lifetime. The rivets are through fixed and finished flush on the inside so there is nothing to trap residue. It is safe for beer, cider, mead, wine, water and soft drinks, hot or cold, although the steel will take up the temperature of whatever is in it, so a hot drink makes a hot handle.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel, the leather or the wood. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it.

On this tankard the front panel where the hammer sits is the obvious placement, and a chosen engraving there replaces the hammer rather than crowding it. The smooth band under the rim also takes a single line of runes well and is the usual choice for a wedding party, where each tankard gets a different name. Details and lead time are on the engraving page.

Fit and sizing for the belt hanger

The leather hanger is the part that is worn, so it is the part that needs sizing thought. The loop takes a belt up to about two inches wide, which covers almost every standard leather belt and most reenactment and costume belts. It is a wrap and buckle design rather than a closed loop, so you do not have to unthread your belt to fit it, and you can move it around your waist to sit where it does not catch when you sit down.

The tankard hangs by its handle rather than by the rim, so it rides upright and close to the hip. Hang it empty. A full tankard on a belt will swing and it will spill, and the weight of twenty fluid ounces on one side of a belt is more noticeable than it sounds. If you want it to hang quietly while you walk, run the buckle strap through the handle twice.

Care

Wash the tankard by hand in warm soapy water and dry it with a cloth. Do not put it in a dishwasher. Dishwasher detergent is aggressive and will dull the brushed finish and leave a chalky bloom around the rivets, and the heat cycle is hard on the leather if the hanger is left attached. Do not soak it overnight either, because water sitting in the rivet seats is the one place a stainless piece can eventually pit.

If the outside dulls, a stainless steel cleaner or a little bicarbonate paste on a soft cloth, worked along the grain of the brushing rather than across it, will bring it back. Feed the leather hanger two or three times a year with a leather balm or dubbin, and keep it away from the drying heat of a radiator or a car dashboard.

Made in the Czech Republic

Every piece we sell is made by hand in the Czech Republic. The smiths there work the way the trade has been worked for a long time, heating and hammering the steel, taking the bevels down by eye, and fitting the handle and the leather one at a time. There is no automated line anywhere in it, so small differences from one piece to the next are normal and expected.

Ransack Viking is a United States company based in Memphis, Tennessee. We bring the pieces in ourselves, inspect them on arrival and ship them from our own warehouse. If you add engraving, that is carried out here in the United States before your order goes out.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand made, not machine made and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The brushed grain runs slightly differently on every body, the etch bites with its own depth and tone, and the rivets are set one at a time so the domes sit with tiny differences in height and spacing. The leather hanger is cut from natural hide, so its grain, its edge burnish and its exact shade of black vary from strap to strap. The capacity, the dimensions, the material and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is it food safe?

Yes. It is food grade stainless steel with a bare uncoated interior and flush finished rivets, safe for beer, cider, mead, wine and soft drinks, hot or cold.

Can it go in the dishwasher?

No. Wash it by hand. Dishwasher detergent dulls the brushed finish and leaves deposits around the rivet heads, and the cycle heat will dry out the leather hanger.

Does it keep a drink cold?

It is single wall, not vacuum insulated, so it chills fast and then follows the room. Chill the tankard in the freezer for a few minutes first and a cold beer stays cold noticeably longer.

Is the belt hanger included?

Yes. The black leather hanger with its steel buckle ships with every tankard and fits belts up to about two inches wide.

Can I have names on a set for a wedding party?

Yes, and it is one of the most common orders we take. Use the rune converter for each name and tell us in the order notes which name goes on which tankard.

Will mine look exactly like the photograph?

Close, but not identical. The brushing grain, the etch tone and the rivet set vary because a person makes each one. The size, the capacity and the shape do not vary.

What is in the box

• One stainless steel Viking tankard with etched Mjolnir and riveted bands
• Black leather belt hanger with steel buckle
• Care card covering hand washing and leather feeding
• Lifetime warranty against defects in the making
• Made and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

See the rest of the horn mugs and tankards, the Viking beer mugs and the wedding and groomsmen gifts, or read the guides for more on drinking vessels and Norse feast kit.