The Rise of Malört, an Unexpected Midwest princess
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Fuck me I almost gagged reading that. The rest is just a horror story. That would be the camping trip I return from alone and immediately call a criminal defense lawyer.
What do they call this cocktail? I suggest "Malörtal Kombat".
If you think you might enjoy it, give it a shot I'd describe the flavor as sweetened church pew, then grapefruit bitterness. If you're not expecting it you'll almost certainly hate it, but it's really not that bad.
"Malort: Weeding out Chicago's weak since 1934"
"Malort: When you need to unfriend someone in person"
> wer "man" + mod "courage," from its early use as an aphrodisiac
I do not mind the taste, most of the time. Some bottles are especially bad though.
I wouldn't be in a hurry to take a big swig of it, but that strikes me a little bit like taking a big swig of soy sauce and concluding it tastes awful.
To my unstudied palate, it is the bitter cousin to Jaegermeister. It’s a bit more complex and more of a mature drink compared to Jaegers.
Malort is bottom shelf example of a “Bäsk” liquor.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bäsk
There are much finer versions of it, and if you’re in Chicago Binnies carries one by Letherbee “Bësk” and if you like that bitter grapefruit/wormwood flavor, it is mana from heaven
I hate that whenever I try to order that at a bar, the bartender thinks I'm just being an idiot to show off. I can't see how it's any more of an acquired taste than something like single malt or calvados. Which, coincidentally, also make for thoroughly disgusting shots.
I wouldn't down half a tin of breath mints in one go, either.
I'm sure someone has done research on this, but I'm unaware of any.
The first time I had it (in Chicago of course), I asked the bartender what it tasted like before trying it as my friends had been building up how bad it was. She said, “It tastes like the day my Father left us.”
I have friends who make custom shirts with the Malört logo and the text “Malört: because fuck you.”
you're not selling me
If you like bitter aperitifs, campari, jager, etc then you owe it to yourself to try malort. If you don't, then you can live without it.
The NYT story above mostly stayed away from how it's become known as like "the worst drink ever" or something, something you drink as a kind of challenge rather than that it's enjoyable.
I've suspected that the manufacturer has been actually encouraging this story. In the age of "challenges", a narrative that this is an incredibly hard to drink thing that's a challenge to drink is actually good marketting, that has been part of it's successful national awareness?
It's not especially challenging, it's just an herbal bitter, which is not for everyone, sure. But it's not gross, it's a fine drink -- and ironically saying this, that it's not actually exceptionally bad, hurts it's marketing! Better to be exceptionally noteworthy bad than simply typical.
It is an explicit part of their marketing. This [0] excellent advertisement in Chicago states:
"Do Not Enjoy. Responsibly."
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/19dvd2j/brilliant_...
1. eat rotten herring (which you'll not enjoy, because it's rotten fish, yo)
2. clean your palette with a disgusting shot of home made malört spirits (or aquavit, equally disgusting)
3. goto 1 until your drunk
4. get laid
Very, very, very few people ever reaches step 4.
Homemade bäsk is usually much better than factory made Bäska Droppar, if you enjoy the taste of wormwood more than just being slapped in the face with artificial bitterness and sugar.
Of course, if you hate the taste of fish, pickled things and spirits in general, you are unlikely to enjoy any of it.
There are probably some similarly high proof amaros out there but they're pretty rare even within that category and an american would probably only encounter them mixed into a cocktail if even then. Fernet branca sure but that's much less bitter. Malort is actually very unusual compared to campari, or suze or something along those lines. Much more bitter, more alcoholic and less sweet than the norm for these drinks.
Right, it's a herbal bitter, not citrus like campari. And not an especially sweet one.
I am not good at remembering brand names there are so many. One I enjoy that comes in tiny little bottles and does have a bit of a foothold in the USA is the digestif Underberg.
Sure, that whole category will be seen by some Americans who are not interested in bitter and digestifs as not particularly palatable. But still nothing special about Malort.
Wikipedia says "Malört is an American brand of bäsk liqueur, ", with bäsk being a Swedish wormwood-based thing. Googling for wormwood amaros finds a variety to try, if the wormwood bitters is what you're looking for. The good ones will taste a lot better (and be a lot more expensive) than Malort, because, right, Malort isn't especially great, it's true.
i had Malort for the first time only a few years ago. I was like, wait, this is it? OK, it's a not especially great example of the category, it's kind of mediocre, but I've drank plenty of the category and don't find it especially hard to drink.
But "a mediocre bitter digestif" is obviously not as good marketing as "the worst drink on the planet, drink it as a challenge and impress your friends".
Amaro's generally speaking are _very_ popular in Chicago. When I first moved here and was more of an out at bars type of person it was _extremely_ common to drink Amaro, especially at the end of a work night. But you'd drink the amaro's you'd expect (Fernet especially). No one would choose Malort because it wasn't any cheaper than a good amaro and was just worse.
The story of Malort is the story of good marketing and pre-social media 'influencers' getting involved. The book mentioned in the article also covers the quirky story of the original Malort brand and its interesting if you like that sort of thing. But as a drink its just uninteresting.
But the marketing campaign, whether crowdsourced viral or intended, is that it's like this uniquely horrible thing.
If anyone is familiar with the category and enjoys it (certainly not everyone does), they won't find it particularly hard to drink or unusual. They will find it not very good, yes. Obviously that's not something you want to market.
As you say, it's not interesting. But "the worst drink you'll ever have" would of course be very interesting! It's not that Malort is great, it's that in fact it's not interesting at all, it's just a mediocre bitter digestif.
You want something that I think really is so bad that I have trouble imagining it's not just a novelty challenge drink -- and yet I think it's not and some people really do like it -- while even sticking to Nordic region (they like some weird stuff)....
https://koskenkorva.com/en/koskenkorva-salmiakki
"Salty" licorice is a misnomer, there's nothing actually salty about it, the "salt" is ammonium chloride. It's vodka flavored with black licorice (I'm with you so far), and the taste of ammonia.
Fun fact: The Nordics are so cold, to age their Aquavit in casks, some producers would load them up on ships and send them to the equator and back. Linie Aquavit still does this tradition.
Personally, Italian Amaros are much better than Aquavit or Malort though. Forget Fernet when there's Averna.
not everything in life needs to be sweet.
The Streisand Effect works. Plus, in a crowded market, anything to set yourself apart is a win.
Malort has been seeing wider distribution recently, which i hear may due to a buyout a while ago. Their website lists distribution in Delaware, Maryland, DC, and randomly checking San Francisco shows availability as well.
No more having to visit Chicago to purchase it enables a lot more people to buy it and businesses to serve it.
The weird Chicago only malort variants do disturb me, but i would try them.
And you compare that to black coffee? Shame on you.
I also love my scotch as peaty as possibly. So most likely my taste buds are broken.
Fernet is dark and very herbally from my recollection.
All that to say, I tried barrel aged Malort -- it mellows down the flavor, so sure it's "better," but again what's the point? There are plenty of better tasting shots out there.
Artemisia absinthium
In our family it's generally been a tradition to go out in the night of August 24th each year to pick some wormwood, and then infuse some plain alcohol with it to have for the coming months. We generally don't leave it in as long recipes call for though, 24h instead of multiple days so the taste is a bit milder.
Like many old traditions the reasons have for many become lost to time, and now it's an accepted fact that that's the magical night to get some wormwood.
The new owners are a serious distillery, and doing the best job possible with the recipe. This will lead to people drinking it for reasons other than a gag, but will that grow to be enough to leave the joke behind?
I developed a taste for it that weekend - it's not that bad (I'd take it over something like Becharovka). Annoyingly years ago (2009ish) I spent a fair amount of time over in the Midwest with work and never drank the stuff.
Malört was introduced in Chicago in the 1930s and was long produced by the Carl Jeppson Company. In 2018, as its last employee was retiring, the brand and company name were sold to CH Distillery of Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Jeppson's Malört is named after Carl Jeppson, a Swedish immigrant who first distilled and popularized the liquor in Chicago. Malört (literally moth herb) is the Swedish word for wormwood, which is the key ingredient in bäsk. Malört is extremely low in thujone, a chemical once prevalent in absinthe and similar drinks.
Malort is from Chicago, which is in the midwest, and it's blown up in popularity lately. I don't think there's anything else to it.
I’d guess that bitterness is the flavor most people are least interested in exploring, and that makes sense. It doesn’t seem to have the same endorphin payoff as other tastes. It’s an interesting flavor, and I think you need to have an interest in digging into unusual flavors before diving into the world of bitter-forward spirits. I think it makes sense that the rise of better cocktails has led to spirits like Malört seeing growth.
But bitterness is a very divisive flavor so lots of people just have extreme reactions to amaros in general and malort in particular.
I used to think of it as the booze for a final stage alcoholic to get a reaction from a drink.
https://www.raschvin.com/en/product/baeska-droppar-prima-sna...
tastes like something you would pour into a chainsaw with that perfect 50:1 ratio of gas to oil.
edit: IDK how ethically right it is (in my opinion it is) but when posting paywalled content we should post the archive link directly or at least as part of the submission
Anyway shame on you NYT, this is like boycotting the web archive, ridiculous...
No, it's a meme that hipsters have somehow latched onto because the Chicago aesthetic seems to be popular now.
If a native Chicagoan tells you that you have to have a shot of Malort when you're at the bar because it's the "unofficial liquor of Chicago" - they're pulling a prank. It's somehow lasted a century as a prank you pull on your buddies who don't drink that often.
Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker was recorded sharing shots of Malört with visiting politicians during the week of the Democratic National Convention. I enjoyed looking at the reaction of the visiting politicians after they drank it.
I have not had Malort, but I have had absinthe, which I believe is similar? And I'd like to contribute.
I wouldn't say it tastes bad. If you drank boiling bleach, you wouldn't say it "tastes bad." That's not the right category of word. It tastes like something that should never, ever go in your mouth.