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 Malört recreationally.
After Prohibition ended, Jeppson's Malört was bought by Bielzoff Products and an official label for the bottle was created. The logo included a crest that mimicked the Chicago flag, and this same crest appears on bottles of Malört today.
Jeppson's Malört was made at the Mar-Salle Distillery on Near North Side from 1953 until the distillery's closing in 1986. Production was then moved to Kentucky and later Florida.
By the end of the twentieth century, Jeppson's Malört was available mostly at Swedish and Polish bars and VFW halls in the Chicago area. But it turns out that all Malört needed was some good PR to find a wider customer base.
In the late 2000s, comedian and bartender Sam Mechling--who had no connection to the Carl Jeppson Company--began promoting Malört with comedic social media posts. He showed people's facial expressions after trying the liqueur for the first time--a phenomenon that came to be known as "Malört face." He also posted people's descriptions of what Malört tastes like, which ranged from the gross to the poetic. Mechling also hosted Malört-themed trivia nights and comedy shows and sold T-shirts with the Malört logo.
Once Malört's owner, Patt Gabelick, caught wind of Mechling's activities in 2012, she arranged to meet with him. Gabelick was originally going to sue Mechling, but she liked him so much she ended up giving him a marketing job instead.
Sales of Malört jumped significantly around this time, and the liqueur soon became available at just about every hipster bar in the Chicago area. CH Distillery in Pilsen purchased the Carl Jeppson Company in 2018, and production of Malört triumphantly returned to Chicago in 2019. Jeppson's Malört can now be found in bars, liquor stores, and restaurants in 30 states. A billboard for Malört even appeared in an episode of the hit TV series "The Bear." Mechling now runs his own marketing company in Ohio.
Malört is generally consumed in shots, but it is increasingly found in cocktails as well. For example, the "Malört highball" combines the liqueur with tequila, lime juice, orange juice, and ginger beer. Malört has also become part of the drinking tradition known as the "Chicago handshake," which is a shot of Malört paired with an Old Style beer.
In 2024, the book Malört: The Redemption of a Revered and Reviled Spirit by former Chicago Tribune reporter Josh Noel was published. That same year, CH Distillery made a joke social media post about selling Malört-flavored candy on April Fool's Day. They got so many requests for the fictional candy that they decided to make it a reality, and the candy can now be purchased on the Malört website.
So just what exactly does Malört taste like? The drink has been described as tasting like "burnt carpet," "a junk drawer," and "pencil shavings and heartbreak." Mechling has said that it tastes like "a baby aspirin wrapped in a grapefruit peel, bound with rubber bands, and then soaked in gin." After trying Malört for the first time, my husband described it as "like drinking seasoned rubbing alcohol" and said that it "tingles in your mouth in a really weird way." He later added, "This stuff should be destroyed." I would describe the taste as "hell with a hint of cinnamon," though I'm not quite sure why I taste cinnamon. Must be the wormwood, I guess.
Malört has even been described as "the liquid equivalent of a Chicago winter." I think this gets to the heart of why Malört has a special place in the hearts of so many Chicagoans: As with a bad Chicago winter, you can bond with other Chicagoans over how terrible Malört is.
To be fair, while doing research online I did come across a couple of bloggers who actually like Malört. Whether you love it, hate it, or love to hate it, Malört has come from humble (and lawfully questionable) beginnings to become a citywide source of humor and a Chicago drinking tradition in its own right.
Here is an easy recipe for a Malört cocktail. Many Malört cocktails like this one include grapefruit, a complementary flavor. This cocktail also includes fresh lime juice, which helps tame the bitterness of the Malört.
Malört Spritz
*Based on a recipe from the EZ Drinking blog
-2 oz. (4 tbsp.) Jeppson's Malört
-1/2 oz. (1 tbsp.) fresh lime juice
-grapefruit soda water
Fill a glass with ice. Add Malört and juice. Top with soda water.
Sources:
Amy Cavanaugh, "Malört: Chicago's Favorite Bitter Liqueur," Serious Eats (September 21, 2020).
Adriana Cardona-Maguigad, "The Unlikely Rise of Malört as Chicago's Drink," WBEZ Chicago Curious City (July 6, 2023).
_________. "Malört's Unlikely Rise from a Joke to Chicago's Drink," Chicago Sun-Times (July 8, 2023).
Justin Kaufmann, Carrie Shepherd and Monica Eng, "Taste Test: Malört Candies Don't Disappoint," Axios Chicago (April 25, 2025).
Grace Perry, "No One Can Agree on What Malört Tastes Like, but the Descriptions Are Always Amazing," Chicago Magazine (May 17, 2018).
Eric Zandona, "Malört Cocktails or What to Drink at the End of the World," EZ Drinking (March 14, 2025).
Monica Eng and David Hammond, Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites (3 Fields Books, 2023).
"Malört Cocktails," Cocktail Chemistry.
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