Notorious Chicago liquor coming to Cincinnati next month

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - One of Chicago’s signature creations is coming to Cincinnati.

No, not Giordano’s, or Pequod’s, or the concept of bandwagon baseball fans... but Jappson’s Malört.

Cincinnati-based Heidelberg Distributing will bring Malört to Ohio beginning April 1, according to a spokesperson for the Chicago distiller.

Malört is the cautionary tale of Prohibition-era liquors, a spirit so bitter and acrid that some significant share of those who try it a first time vow never to try it a second.

“During almost 60 years of American distribution, we found only 1 out of 49 men will drink Jeppson Malört,” the back of the bottle once read.

Hence the “Malört face,” a reflexive collapse of the lips and brow that almost certainly has an evolutionary basis. Our species only survived this long, after all, by learning to treat with extreme caution things like spoiled food—or those that taste equally of paint thinner, burning plastic, contact solution and formaldehyde.

Yet every day, hundreds, if not thousands of folks in Chicago sidle up to the bar, order a shot of Malört and (rejecting every lesson of their evolutionary forebears) shoot it down the hatch.

Ten days until you’ll be able to do the same.

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