For almost half a year, not much happens in Estonian nature. If we are lucky to have a proper winter, there will be snow and frost and everything will look quietly beautiful in the cold winter sun. If we are less lucky, there’ll be freezing rain and mud and black ice. But nothing grows, nothing blooms, nothing is fully alive.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that winter doesn’t have any taste or smell. A burning fireplace or an old wood oven, a smoke sauna, logs and peat bricks (the latter are rare these days) brought in from the cold, the bare branches outside – this is what an Estonian winter smells like to me. And tastes, sometimes.

I’ve always loved everything smoke-flavoured. I believe I could actually eat wood if it was smoked. I love smoked fish, smoked meat, smoked cheese, smoked tea, smoked salt. I put Viking and Salish smoked salts on everything: I’ve talked about the first before, the second is an Indian salt that smells like an Estonian sauna. It’s perfect with eggs or fish and in wintry stews. When I want to smell smoke, Naomi Goodsir’s Bois d’Ascese is a wonderful, intensely smoky-woody scent that will last through a wash. For scenting rooms, I have found nothing to beat Diptyques’s excellent Feu de Bois – this, also, combines both wood and smoke.

Peat’s association with winter is maybe less direct, but if you’ve ever been to a frost-covered bog in Janaury, you’ll understand. Peat is one of those things I always associate with Estonian nature – not spectacular or glamorous, but always there, surviving. I’m glad they’ve now started to use it in beauty products, especially in masks like this Sacred Forest Peat Mask by Sõsar, but there are quite a few others.

Bringing together peat and smoke, there is also whisky. Not Estonian, I admit, but definitely northern. My love affair with tough single malt whiskies goes back to Iain Banks’s Raw Spirit, his travel book about Scotland, whisky and cars. Probably because of that book, I especially like Islay ones – peaty, smoky, tarry, medicinal (Laphroig, Lagavulin or Ardbeg would work better with today’s theme, but I personally prefer Bowmore). I cannot drink them in big quantities, but I’m glad that these bottles exist. Perfect to have a sip on a cold winter night after a smoke sauna, when burning wood in your fireplace, peat mask on your face.

PS I’ve just realised I’ve made the ideal dish for this occasion a couple of days ago – pear barley with garlic, onions and smoky bacon. Next time, I’ll add a splash of whisky. (Alternatively, you could make this.)