After coming back to my own question after 5 year and seeing so many people found this useful, a little update.
A string variable can be split into a list
by using the split function (it can contain similar values, set
is for the assignment) . I haven't found this function in the official documentation but it works similar to normal Python. The items can be called via an index, used in a loop or like Dave suggested if you know the values, it can set variables like a tuple.
{% set list1 = variable1.split(';') %}
The grass is {{ list1[0] }} and the boat is {{ list1[1] }}
or
{% set list1 = variable1.split(';') %}
{% for item in list1 %}
<p>{{ item }}<p/>
{% endfor %}
or
{% set item1, item2 = variable1.split(';') %}
The grass is {{ item1 }} and the boat is {{ item2 }}