I am not a fan of doing stories about people I know but I held my nose the other day and met Josh Noel at a bar. He’s the former beer and spirits writer for this newspaper. I held my nose because he wrote a smart new book about Malört, a subject that requires a little nose holding. Regardless of your history with this Chicago-bred atrocity, the title of Noel’s upcoming book — “Malört: The Redemption of a Revered & Reviled Spirit” — likely either downplays the caustic thrill of a shot of Malört or soft-pedals the depths of your disgust. Me, I’d always been too chicken to try it.
Still, it’s an absorbing history. Did you know Malört was originally sold door to door by an elderly Swedish man named Carl Jeppson? Did you know Jeppson’s Malört, as it would become known, was initially sold in stores by a successful Chicago spirits manufacturer and lawyer (George Brode) who spent a year in prison for draft evasion — during World War II? Did you know his former secretary (and later romantic companion) Pat Gabelick steered the Malört brand for decades after Brode died? Did you know it’s made with aptly named wormwood herbs? Did you know Noel collected so many wincing reactions to the taste of Malört — my favorite is “a forest fire, if the forest were made of earwax” — by the end, you have steeled yourself for the inevitable:
OK, I have to taste this myself.
Thus, meeting at a bar.
“Two shots of Malört,” Noel said to the bartender.
We got two small glasses of something kind of … yellow, gasoline-esque. Noel really is a fan of Malört, he explained. He likes to drink it after a big meal. Settles the stomach, he insists. He thinks the dare-ya aspect of drinking a shot of Malört tends to get overblown around Chicago and never really matches the memorable experience of actually drinking Malört. “The lore’s exceeded the awfulness. Most people who try it think it’s less bad than expected — I think. Depends on the palate. If you are used to bitter, strong … Do you drink IPAs? Malört is its own thing and does not taste like anything else. Absinthe is in the same family. It has a point of view.”
He’s in the minority. Or rather, until recently, you might assume so. As the book lays out, about 15 years ago the brand hit a low and was only selling 1,000 cases a year. Since Malört was sold to CH Distillery in 2018, around 35,000 cases are sold annually. And yet, the presiding reaction to Malört is a face scrunch, a shiver, maybe a nervous giggle.
“The reputation,” Noel said, “was why would someone willingly drink this? Or even, why does this exist? Why is this intensely bitter Swedish spirit only available around here?”
I get it.
You probably do too. When I was 11, I was a latchkey kid and I would invite friends over and we would raid the kitchen, find the most disparate ingredients we could come up with — carrots, hot dogs, hot fudge sauce, paprika, gum, a tray of ice — blend it up and dare each other to drink it. Now, every few months there’s a new online food challenge that dares its test subjects to try the seemingly nauseating, spicy or indigestible. Who remembers the One Chip Challenge? (That is, eating one Paqui chip, made of two of the hottest foods around, Carolina Reaper and Naga Viper peppers). The Cinnamon Challenge? The Sprite-Banana Challenge? Those last two led to lots of hospital visits. But in every case, what you’re really asked to swallow is a fear of the unfamiliar.
There are so many questionable viral food videos today, that reactions from famous chefs — Gordon Ramsay comes to mind — is a sub-category. The genius of the popular YouTube series “Hot Ones,” co-created and hosted by former Chicago suburbanite Sean Evans, is predicated on the pressing question of how famous people behave while eating a series of increasingly hot chicken wings. Results vary. Watching New Zealand singer Lorde cruise through was like witnessing a one-minute mile. But watching Jennifer Lawrence (“I feel like I’m going to die!”) was harrowing.
Malört, though, falls into a different category of dare-ya tastes.
Americans call these “acquired tastes.” These are often old, specific and fine with the culture that created them. That name, “Malört,” means “wormwood” in Swedish. Malört arrived in Chicago via Swedish immigrants who’d been drinking it for ages. “So the appeal in Chicago, in the early days, was to Swedish immigrants,” Noel said. “There was a whole line of spirits (from Brode’s Bielzoff Products company) for first-generation immigrants, Scandinavian, German, Polish — they got tastes of home. But when there were not enough first-generation immigrants to appeal to, it was a thing for working-class Chicago. After that, George Brode started to lean into Malört as a gag.”
He ran ads asking: “Are you man enough to drink Jeppson?”
Think of Vegemite, black licorice, anchovies on pizza, haggis, lutefisk — one culture’s no-nonsense go-tos, at least initially, becomes another culture’s insensitive punchlines. Or conversely, a culinary test for belonging, hanging. I remember balking once at biting into a nearly black, sulfur-smelling “thousand-year egg” in a Chinese restaurant, and feeling like a tourist. On the other hand, as an Italian American, the things I have seen done to pasta in the Midwest feel like penance for every time I have hesitated before green bean casseroles.
Malört, Noel reminded me, “is a legit cultural experience, intertwined with the fabric of this city.” Meaning, I assumed: How could I claim to live in Chicago without trying Malört just this once?
“Smell first,” he said.
I edged my nose forward, braced, and it was … fine.
“I’m getting herbal,” Noel said. “All right, now take it all down at once. Do not sip this.” He spoke quickly, like if we’re going to rob this bank then we’re going to rob it now. “OK — onetwothree.”
It was caustic, but less liquid nails than harsh, warm medicine.
“The finish is going off in a couple directions,” Noel said. “You getting that? I’m getting the taste of rubber bands. Dry, and abrasive, but also, sits nicely on the tongue. A little sweetness around the edges to balance it out.”
I tasted pine, I said.
“I totally get pine. I used to say it tastes like Christmas trees. Also, some mint.”
And a touch of licorice. But truly, not so bad. I could feel my legs. Level complete.
“It’s also more memorable than a lot of things in this bar,” Noel said.
So, is there anything you won’t drink, I asked.
He thought. “Oh … milkshake IPAs. Let’s just put it this way, that stuff’s not for me.”
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com