Malort: The Redemption of a Revered and Reviled Spirit

＂As I am someone who has grown to actually like Malört, you may doubt my taste. But Josh Noel’s exploration of this most maligned spirit is funny, fascinating, and surprisingly delicious.＂ -John Hodgman, comedian and author of Medallion Status

Malört may be the worst thing you’ll ever taste.

Known primarily for its intense bitterness, the infamous Chicago liqueur has been compared to ＂a forest fire, if the forest was made of earwax.＂ Yet lurking in the horror and the mockery lies the truth of Malört: we keep going back for more. For nearly a hundred years, we’ve gone back.

Jeppson’s Malört could have died a hundred deaths in that time. Its survival wasn’t always a given. It also was no accident. There was one man’s dogged persistence. One woman’s patience and dedication. There were cultural shifts and fortunate timing that helped transform a drink rooted in centuries-old Swedish tradition into the American sensation it is today.

Malört is a story of love, relationships, and how one generation finds meaning where generations before did not. Such transformations happen in art, in history, and in food, and it happened to Jeppson’s Malört.

Author and beer expert Josh Noel unpacks a uniquely American tale, equal parts culture, business, and personal relationships-involving secret love, federal prison, a David vs. Goliath court battle, and, ultimately, the 2018 sale of Jeppson’s Malört, which made Pat Gabelick, a 75-year-old Chicago woman who spent much of her life as a legal secretary, into an unlikely millionaire.

Malört isn’t just the story of one brazen liquor-it is the story of modern tastes and cultural shifts.

Josh Noel is the author of Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out. He wrote about beer and travel for the Chicago Tribune for over a decade; he has also contributed to This American Life and to the New York Times and other publications. He has become one of the nation’s most recognizable beer journalists, winning multiple awards from the North American Guild of Beer Writers. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children.