'What's A Malört?' Chicago's Polarizing Shot Gets Clarkson Endorsement

CHICAGO — A Malört shot may just be the most Chicago thing of all Chicago things, given the love-hate relationship that residents and visitors who experience the Chicago-made liquor seem to have.

Malört, which Jeppson's distillery brands as a “Chicago icon” that has the “aroma and full-bodied flavor of an 'unusual botanical' that possesses a bitter taste that is “savored by two-fisted drinkers," according to its creators, received an endorsement this week from singer-turned daytime TV host Kelly Clarkson.

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Clarkson experienced her first “Chicago handshake:” a 1-2 punch of a shot of Malört with a beer chaser on her TV show when she was joined by “Chicago PD” co-star Benjamin Levy Aguilar. Aguilar introduced her to the drink, frequently served to unsuspecting tourists.

“What’s a Malört?” Clarkson asks before a bottle of the liquor along with two shots and two pints of beer were brought out for the pair to try.

Clarkson’s guest described the beverage as a Chicago liquor that one can only drink “if you’re cool,” and followed up by saying he drank it in Chicago “because he’s cool like that.”

Clarkson took the shot and then drank the beer before expressing her approval of the shot, saying that drinkers don’t need a beer chaser after the Malört.

“That’s good — I don’t think I needed a chaser,” Clarkson said. “It’s still hot going down.”

Levy Aguilar said that Malört tends to be an acquired taste akin to beets, which Clarkson accurately said people either love or hate.

Levy Aguilar then asked if Clarkson felt Malört is an acquired taste, to which the host replied, “No, I just handled it.”

Malört also got notoriety from mentions on Hulu’s Chicago-themed show “The Bear."

"One of our missions is to get Malört recognized outside Chicago and across the country, so Kelly's live attempt of the Chicago Handshake is a huge win for us," said Tremaine Atkinson, co-founder, CEO, CFO and head distiller of CH Distillery, which purchased Malört in 2018.

"Malört can be very challenging — people either love it or hate it — and Kelly clearly fell into the 'love' category," Atkinson told Patch.

Josh Noel, who spent 12 years writing about beer and spirits for the Chicago Tribune before recently leaving the paper, calls the beverage "so unique and so Chicago" and says that there are multiple camps in which people tend to fall when it comes to Malört.

Noel considers himself a fan and says that the taste profile is a blend of grapefruit and rubberbands, which adds to the argument that tends to arise when it comes to the distilled spirit. Noel concedes that the spirit is bracing and bitter and is incredibly dry, which makes it "one of a kind."

"It's just something people love to talk about," Noel, the author of the 2018 book, "Barrel Aged Stout And Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser Busch and How Craft Beer Became Big Business," told Patch on Wednesday. "It's something that people love to drink either they love it or they love to hate it. It just stirs up so much emotion and it's just a great subject no matter what."

He added: "Whether people realize it or not, I think they just appreciate it for what it is, which is so unique and so Chicago that it just resonates."