Malort The Redemption of a Revered and Reviled Spirit

by Noel, Josh

• ISBN13: 9780914091677
• ISBN10: 0914091670
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2024-09-03
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Summary

Malört may be the worst thing you’ll ever taste.
But Jeppson’s Malört is no stunt. Known primarily for its intense bitterness—such bitterness that it has been compared to “a forest fire, if the forest was made of earwax”—it is rooted in centuries-old Swedish tradition. It’s a fluke to have ever existed in the United States and flukier still to have survived 100 years. Least likely of all: Jeppson’s Malört becoming the cultural sensation it is today.
Malört is a story of love, relationships and how one generation finds meaning where generations before did not. Such transformations happen in art, in history, and in food, and it happened to Jeppson’s Malört.
Author and beer expert Josh Noel unpacks a uniquely American tale, equal parts culture, business, and personal relationships as well as secret love, federal prison, a David vs. Goliath court battle, and, ultimately, the sale of Jeppson’s Malört, in 2018, to make an unlikely millionaire of Pat Gabelick, a 74-year-old Chicago woman who spent much of her life as a legal secretary.
Malört isn’t just the story of one brazen liquor—it is the story of modern tastes and cultural shifts.
 

Author Biography

Josh Noel is the author of Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out. He wrote about beer and travel for the Chicago Tribune for over a decade; he has also contributed to This American Life and to the New York Times and other publications. He has become one of the nation’s most recognizable beer journalists, winning multiple awards from the North American Guild of Beer Writers. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children.

Table of Contents

Prologue 
Part I: 1966–1999 
1. George and Pat 
2. A Year and a Day 
3. The Horny-Handed Male Artisan 
4. Pat and George 
5. Just Be Patient 
6. They Found It in Each Other 
Part II: 2000–2011 
7. The Shift Quietly Began 
8. What the Fuck Was That? 
9. I Have Heard It Described as “If You Drank Water Out of an Ash Tray” 
10. The Owner of Jeppson’s Malört Walks into a Bar . . . 
11. Pat and Peter 
12. Peter and Chris 
Part III: 2012–2018 
13. Sam 
14. I Hope He Is Watching Us 
15. What If We Made Our Own Malört? 
16. Move Over Malört 
17. Pat and Sam 
18. And Now It’s Gone 
Epilogue 
Sources 
Acknowledgments 
Index