Handpicked For The Holidays: A Toast To Chicago’s Twisted Classic, Malort

The Reset team has gone through our year of conversations and hand-selected our personal faves to share with you before 2024 wraps up. In September, Reset sat down with writer Josh Noel to talk about his book, Malort: The Redemption of a Revered and Reviled Spirit. His book asks how a spirit that “tastes like bandaids” and has been the butt of many jokes survive generations and go from a lone bottle collecting dust in the back of bars to becoming an infamous Chicago must-try experience? This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. You can find the original interview here: New book chronicles the unlikely staying power of Jeppson’s Malört (September 5, 2024). For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.