(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – Few people, if any, offer kind words about Jeppson’s Malört, the bitter wormwood spirit that is manufactured in Chicago and sold on a mind-boggling scale.
“Malört is an unusual product to me. It’s got to be included in business textbooks somewhere, someday, if it isn’t already – a commercial product that’s marketed based on its repulsiveness. ‘Buy our product, it’s horrible,’” says David Hammond, co-author of Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites.
The latest edition of WBBM Newsradio’s podcast “Looped In: Chicago” examines the much-maligned, 70-proof botanical concoction. The man credited with developing the product in Chicago, Swedish immigrant Carl Jeppson, was able to sell bottles of Malört during Prohibition by passing it off as a medicinal tonic.
The Malört bashing shows no sign of subsiding. But Tremaine Atkinson, CEO and head distiller for the Pilsen-based company that took over the brand in 2018, is an unabashed fan.
He recalls his own introduction to the drink when he moved to Chicago 25 years ago and went bar-hopping with a buddy.
“Ended up at a dive bar, could not tell you which one. I got the classic, ‘Hey, let’s do a shot,’” Atkinson recalls. “I did the shot of Malört, and I gave just the classic reaction: ‘What the F just happened to me?’ My buddy Tony said, ‘That was Malört! Welcome to Chicago.’ And I said, ‘Wow. Huh. Can we do another one?’”
Malört’s distribution was limited to a few states when the company began making the drink. That has now expanded to 30 states, Atkinson said.
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