Welcome to the weekend! Are you the kind of friend that tries to spare your companions of the horrible things that you’ve tasted or are you like the rest of us and like to have others join in on your suffering? What makes us so fascinated by things that don’t even try to taste good? We’re exploring this idea and more this week.
If you’d like to share your two cents join us on Discord or reach out via our website; we love to hear from our spirited readers!
The Accidentally Infamous Spirit
How The World’s Worst Spirit Became A Chicago Staple
Somehow Malört has survived on a reputation built on dares and local tradition. Being from New England, I hadn’t even heard of the spirit until the age of internet viral videos. I’m pretty sure the first time I heard of it was during COVID lockdown when I was scrolling endlessly on TikTok and I remember thinking “Wow, we really do love to share horrible experiences with others”. It’s like when you taste or smell something awful among friends or relatives you don’t say “OMG spare yourselves, don’t try this!” you are more apt to say “OMG that’s disgusting, you have to try it!” (Or maybe this is a growing up with brothers experience you tell me)
As it turns out Malört has used it’s infamy to its advantage and has built an entire ad campaign out of it. Anna Sokratov, director of marketing at Jeppson’s Malört has shared some of her favorite ad slogans like the one below:
It’s completely unserious and must be the most fun marketing job around.
So where the heck did this horrible spirit come from and why are people still drinking it? Well, it originally comes from Sweden… kind of. Carl Jeppson, the man credited with creating Malört, immigrated to the US from Sweden in the 1920s. He managed to create and sell Malört right through prohibition because it was originally marketed as a health product and no one assumed anyone would ever drink it recreationally. The name is derived from the Swedish word for wormwood which is a bitter ingredient famously used in absinthe and vermouth.
The spirit has become a right-of-passage to Chicagoans but has also expanded to 39 of the fifty American states. It turns out that misery really does love company. Have you tried Malört? How would you describe it?
Barrel Scam Caught By UK Government
How One Company Tricked Investors Out of Thousands
It is somewhat old news that barrel investments are a waste of money. Some argue that the investment just doesn’t make financial sense (for small-time investors) while some others have been crying fraud since the very beginning. One company is facing legal action from London’s High Court this week after being proved to have sold fraudulent shares of barrels.
Cask Spirits Global is charged with scamming at least 17 investors out of nearly £100,000 or $136,000 US. Out of the 17 investors, it was found that only 4 had valid documentation of any real ownership. “Some were issued paperwork in the name of a fictitious company, while others received certificates that contained false storage information, or simply referred to casks of whisky that never existed.”
For investigators this discovery and ruling is unfortunately not surprising. There is very high risk and very little reward seen in these kinds of investments. The spirits shares industry is widely unregulated and is full of misleading information that make things sound good on paper only to be filled with empty promises later on. If something sounds too good to be true, there is a very real chance that it actually is.
Cocktail Recipe Of The Week
The Best Simplified Home Version
To go along with this week’s video I decided to share the famous Singapore Sling recipe. This version is from Jeffrey Morgenthaler and involves a couple less ingredients than the original making it a little easier for at home bartenders.
Singapore Sling
1 oz. London dry gin
1 oz. Cherry Heering
1 oz. Benedictine
1 oz. lime juice
2 oz. soda water
1 dash Angostura bitters
In a cocktail shaker, combine gin, Cherry Heering, Benedictine, and lime juice with ice cubes. Shake ingredients until cold, and top with soda water. Strain over fresh ice in a chilled Collins glass and top with Angostura bitters.
Best Video We Saw This Week
I shared this video because it sent me down a rabbit hole. My husband sent me a video of a bar patron cranking this machine and I thought: where did this thing come from? Turns out it’s a little tricky to find information on. There was a big reveal of a replica cocktail shaker made back in 2012-2014ish after a famous spirits guru named Jason Crawley saw a drawing of the machine in a 19th century cocktail book. It seemed that there were no surviving cocktail shaking machines in existence like the one in the drawing, so Crawley set about making his own. When you search online now for vintage cocktail shaking machines you find a number of results for authentic vintage machines, which the one in the video also claims to be. This rabbit hole might not yet be exhausted, I may just have to find out more.
Compressed Intelligence:
Union members at Cameronbridge Distillery will vote by September 9th on whether or not to strike. The strike would be in response to proposed labor cuts being made without proper consultation from Diageo to the sites employees on potential redundancies. Strikes like this are likely to be seen at many Diageo facilities going forward as the company seeks to cut $1 billion in costs over the next three years.
The impacts of the US tariffs on Canadian spirits are likely to reach into farming industries. Canadian cereal crops are bracing for losses as long term effects are considered regarding the tariffs. Farmers have to plant crops according to projected demand, so many will likely be forced to either reduce crop sizes or have contingency plans for the overstock of certain crops.
