A New Malört for Chicago

I've tried for years to write about Malört, the bitter Chicago curiosity, pitching the story to various publications. But none bit. Not even Edible Chicago, for God's sake! (If any food/drink magazine needs to weigh in on Malört, it's that one, but the editors didn't seem to get it.)

Perhaps part of the problem was that the niche market for the oddball liqueur was a static one. For decades, there was but one brand of the stuff: Jeppson's Malört. But now, suddenly, there has been a 100% increase in selection. That's right: there are now two Malörts on the Chicago market. The second is being made and sold by a bartender at The Violet Hour cocktail bar, in collaboration with a local distiller. It is called R. Franklin’s Original Recipe.

Then again, maybe there is still only one Malört. When writing this piece for the New York Times, I tried to contact the Jeppson's people. They did not get back to me until after the item had ran. Patricia D. Gabelick, president of Jeppson's, had this to say: "what Leatherbee is planning on producing is not a Malört. A true Swedish Malort cannot be over 80 proof. With all the additives and the high proof it certainly sounds like an Absinthe." 

Here's the article: 

The Beard Awards Find Room for the Bar

From Diner's Journal, news of a needed change at the James Beard Awards:

James Beard Awards Are Late (but Welcome) to the Bar

By ROBERT SIMONSON

The outstanding-wine-program category of the James Beard Awards was born the same year the food-world prizes were first given out: 1991. Now, 21 years later, the Beard Foundation has finally gotten around to honoring the other half of every restaurant’s liquor regimen.

The five inaugural nominees for outstanding bar program were announced on Monday. They include two bars from New York (Pegu Club, PDT), two from Chicago (Aviary, The Violet Hour) and one from San Francisco (Bar Agricole).

For many professionals in the spirits and cocktail world, the reaction to the advent of the category wasn’t so much “Great!” as “What took them so long?”

“It was an acknowledgment that as much time, if not more, is being spent on the bar programs these days as the wine program,” said Mitchell Davis, vice president of the James Beard Foundation. “We’re in the midst of a cocktail frenzy.”

(The food part of the program, of course, went on as usual: The finalists,announced Monday, included several New York names: David Chang and Daniel Humm for outstanding chef; Balthazar and Blue Hill for outstanding restaurant: and Isa and Tertulia for best new restaurant.)

Mr. Davis, who is a cocktail enthusiast himself — martinis, gimlets and Manhattans are his go-to drinks — does not think the foundation is necessarily arriving late to the party. “The foundation is always criticized for being too late,” he said. “But I think there’s a benefit to not jumping on trends too fast. I certainly don’t think we’ve missed the moment. The bar revival hasn’t peaked.”

“This is a collaborative process,” he added. “We have committees and judges that make decisions. You have to get a lot of people to agree” on the creation of a new category.

The folks behind the honored bars think the award will only do the industry good. “The craft bartending industry has made enormous strides in the last number of years, investing great amounts of time an effort into both education and refinement of technique,” said Audrey Saunders, of Pegu Club. “Now we’re witnessing the fruits of our labor with a true ‘raising of the bar,’ and it’s extremely gratifying to see the change in public perception that’s taken place along with it.” She added that she believed the new award “will inspire many more bars to excellence, and thus encourage further fortification of our industry.”

Jim Meehan of PDT observed that the Beard foundation was merely acknowledging what chefs have for years. “I’ve persuaded chefs, culinary schools and amateur cooks to consider the similarities between the bar and the kitchen for years,” he said. “Linton Hopkins in Atlanta, Barbara Lynch in Boston, José Andrés in D.C., Wylie Dufresne in New York and Charles Phan in San Francisco have nurtured sophisticated bar programs for years, and now we have chefs such as Daniel Humm and Grant Achatz taking it to the next level.”

A ballot listing the five nominees will be submitted to a panel of roughly 400 judges, who will vote in the bar program awards. All the winners will be announced on May 7 at a ceremony at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center..

Now that the bar program hurdle has been cleared, might the foundation created an outstanding mixologist category sometime in the future? “I would not be surprised,” Mr. Davis said.

A Taste of Malört

I was sitting at the bar at The Violet Hour when Toby Maloney, the founder of the Chicago cocktail haven, instructed the bartender to pour me a shot of Malört. "This will make you feel like a wimp for liking Fernet Branca," he said. I took a sip and shuddered. It was, indeed, a stronger customer than Fernet, more bitter and austere and raw. But I did not dislike it, and I could see getting used to it, particularly if my life was hard, and I needed something harder to drink to make existence more endurable.

It was only natural that I should first sample Malört in Chicago. The only distributor of Malört in the United States is the Carl Jeppson company of Chicago. The company is named after a Swedish immigrant who popularized and sold the liquor in Chicago. (It's been made for Jeppson in Florida since the 1970s, but is still mainly seen and consumed in Chicago.)

Malört is a liqueur derived from wormwood, the infamous botanical long associated with Absinthe. It is Swedish in origin, even though Maloney led me to believe that the drink was favored by the Poles that once populated Wicker Park, the neighborhood Violet Hour is in. (The word malört is the Swedish word for the wormwood plant.)

Malört has enjoyed a small resurgence of late, with Chicago mixologists toying around with it and using it in cocktails. Not everyone is a fan, however. When I mentioned the intoxicant to Lynn House, the respected mixologist at Chicago's Blackbird, she shivered. "I can't stand the stuff," she said. "It's popular right now, against my wishes."

(Photo courtesy Cocktail Database.)