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 go.