“Engine oil with a touch of gasoline and grapefruit.”
“Hot, messy sweat meets athlete’s foot juice.”
“If Lower Wacker had a taste.”
Those were just some of the ways participants at Sunday’s Malört world record attempt described Chicago’s hometown liqueur.
Almost 2,000 people packed into Recess, the sprawling West Loop bar and restaurant, for an attempt at what organizers believe is the first record for the largest mass of people taking a shot of Malört at the same time. Attendees arrived sporting Malört T-shirts, jerseys, hats shaped like the bottle and Malört-themed costumes, including the Mandalorian and pope.
The sold-out event, billed as a “Bad Decision for a Good Cause,” doubled as a fundraiser for Ravenswood Community Services, a Chicago nonprofit that provides meals and groceries to people in the Uptown and Ravenswood neighborhoods. CH Distillery, which owns and produces Malört, matched $10 of every ticket sold, raising at least $25,000 for the organization before additional donations were made throughout the night.
“This event is really special to us,” said Anna Sokratov, director of marketing at Malört. “It’s one of the biggest events that we’ve probably ever thrown, and it’s wonderful that we’re able to benefit a charity to have a good time.”
The idea began last year with Franky Everleigh of Everleigh Entertainment, who volunteers for RCS. As a fan of the spirit, he approached Malört with the idea of organizing a mass shot for charity, and it quickly grew.
Organizers initially released 2,000 tickets for the event, which quickly sold out. They then released another round of 500 tickets the week before the event, which sold out within two minutes.
“We knew that this would be something that was exciting to a lot of people, but I don’t think we could have ever thought that this would be something that’s so big,” Sokratov said.
The enthusiasm extended far beyond Recess. Approximately 100 bars across the country hosted official watch parties, while people at home tuned into a livestream. Organizers also heard from a bar in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that wanted to participate.
Those crowds took part in the celebration but did not count toward the record total. The event was also not an official Guinness Book of World Records attempt.
In the end, 1,969 in-person shots were taken at Recess, while the livestream peaked at 18,000 viewers.
A Chicago rite of passage
Jeppson’s Malört has been part of Chicago’s drinking culture for nearly a century.
Carl Jeppson, a Swedish immigrant, began producing his “bäskbrännvin,” a traditional Swedish-style bitter, in Chicago during Prohibition in the 1920s. He marketed the liqueur as a medicinal product, claiming it could rid people of stomach worms and other parasites. According to Malört’s website, Jeppson largely avoided trouble with federal authorities because they believed that no one would actually drink his concoction recreationally.
After Prohibition ended in 1933, the spirit began being produced as the Jeppson’s Malört known today.
Known for its intensely bitter, wormwood-forward flavor, Malört has grown in popularity over the years, evolving from an obscure spirit into a Chicago rite of passage that visitors and newcomers are often encouraged to enjoy l—or, more often, endure.
That tradition was on full display Sunday night as locals and visitors poured into Recess, welcomed with the small Malört bottles they would later raise during the record attempt.
Before the official shot, emcee and burlesque performer Hot Tawdry asked the crowd if anyone had never tried Malört.
Isabel Pichler, 25, raised her hand.
Pichler was invited onstage, where she knelt as Tawdry poured Malört directly into her mouth.
“Oh, that’s delicious,” Pichler said immediately afterward. The crowd cheered.
Pichler had recently moved to Chicago from Portland, Oregon, and had been waiting for the right opportunity to try the liqueur she had heard so much about. A mass Malört shot seemed fitting.
“My friend gave me a really bad descriptor of what Malört tastes like, and it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be,” Piechler said. “It made me feel welcome to the city.”
For locals Diana Diaz, 41, and Josh Garrett, 42, Malört is less an introduction to Chicago than a fixture of life in it. The pair arrived wearing matching Malört-themed outfits, their shirts and shorts sporting classic Malört sayings and Malört bottles. They said the spirit had become their go-to shot after the pandemic.
“The worse Malört tastes, the better,” Diaz said. “It’s a team-building exercise that we all endure together.”
“If we’re at a bar and somebody’s never had Malört, we’ll buy them a shot,” Garrett said. “Anyone who comes to town, we make them try it.”
The mass shot was the main attraction, but Recess offered attendees plenty of other opportunities to consume Chicago’s most notorious spirit.
The cocktail menu included a Malört Paloma, a Malört Mule and “A Chicago-ish Handshake,” which featured a Coors Light instead of Old Style. At the shotski station, attendees could try Malört-infused shots in strawberry, banana and Hot Cheeto flavors.
Malört also found its way into the food menu, appearing in beef chili dogs, Nutella churros and sausage pizza slices.
In true Chicago fashion, the festivities were chaotic, bizarre and fully embraced by the crowd.
An aerial performer hung upside down from the ceiling while pouring Malört shots. A juggler wandered through the venue tossing three illuminated Malört bottles. Attendees posed for pictures with a Malört-themed Mandalorian and pope. There was even a toilet photo op.
Leading up to the countdown, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker took the stage after serving as a celebrity bartender, pouring shots of Malört. Invoking the poet Carl Sandburg’s famous description of Chicago, Pritzker told the crowd, “We put our blood, sweat and tears into fighting for others, fighting for the city of Chicago. And it’s blood, sweat, and tears that make up Malört.”
When asked what it would take to get a fifth star on the Chicago flag for Malört, Pritzker joked, “We’re putting the whole bottle of Malört on the flag.”
After the crowd began to chant for him to take a shot, Pritzker drank directly from the bottle and the party roared.
Then at 7:50 p.m., Q101 radio personality Lauren O’Neil started the countdown. Inside and outside Recess, the crowd cracked open their bottles and raised them high.
“3, 2, 1, Cheers!” O’Neil shouted along with the crowd.
For a moment, the bar fell quiet. Then came a wave of cheers, gasps and laughter as roughly 2,500 people took their shots nearly in unison. Some raised their bottles triumphantly. Others grimaced and gagged.
Anthony DeVore downed his shot like water, while his wife Savanna DeVore spit out most of hers.
“It tastes like if you had a garbage bag and cut the corner off, then had whatever liquid comes out,��� Anthony said. “But if I’m at a bar, I order Malört 100% of the time.”
Savanna, on the other hand, had her last shot of Malört when she moved to Chicago 10 years ago.
“It’s gonna be another 10 years before I do that again,” Savanna said.
Among the crowd was a group wearing custom T-shirts honoring their friend Jassen Cho, a devoted Malört fan who was killed in a drive-by shooting in May while working as an Uber driver.
“He just liked to have a good time and make people laugh,” said Jen Herrera, one of Cho’s friends. “He gave me my first Malört shot when I moved here. It was so funny. Everybody made a massive deal about it.”
She said Cho was supposed to be at a Malört event the night he died but decided to work last minute instead.
“He would have loved to be here, being a part of something that brings Chicago together,” Herrera said.
The back of the group’s matching T-shirts seemed to capture the spirit of the night: “Laugh loud. Love hard. Say yes.”
Eva Remijan-Toba is a freelance writer.
