Chow Down Chicago: Good Eats from the Windy City

  Jeppson's Malört was once a niche liqueur consumed mainly within Chicago's Swedish community. Now it's a Chicago favorite that can be found throughout the city and beyond. What caused this change? Turns out all it took was for someone to promote the comedic value of this extremely bitter-tasting drink. Malört is a Swedish liqueur similar to absinthe that is made with wormwood, a bitter herb. It has traditionally been used to treat intestinal parasites and other maladies such as indigestion, hangovers, and nausea. The word malört is Swedish for wormwood .  In the 1920s, Swedish immigrant Carl Jeppson started making his own version of Malört. (He came from a region in Sweden where wormwood grows wild.) Jeppson sold his liqueur door to door in Chicago's Swedish community on the North Side. He got around Prohibition laws by marketing his product as a tonic to cure stomach worms and parasites. Law enforcement concluded that because of its awful taste nobody would drink Mal...