12-05-2025
Malört And Pope Leo XIV Are Trending At The Same Time
There are some coincidences that are just a little too perfect. They are those random occurrences that extend beyond the chaos of our infinite universe and feel more like divine providence. This week, the internet experienced a bizarre synchronicity that verges on a miracle: the election of a new pope and the virality of the grossest alcohol gifted to us from up high: malört.
Malört is a liqueur. But it's not one of those "fun" liqueurs like Kahlua or Amaretto that's easy to drink. That's because malört is flavored with wormwood — scientific name artemisia absinthium — the same ingredient found in absinthe.
Don't worry about the urban myth regarding absinthe; there is nowhere near enough potency in either it or malört to make you hallucinate. What you do have to worry about, however, is malört's horrifically bitter taste that will make your tongue try to detach and escape from your mouth.
We all have Sweden to thank for this concoction. The Swedes have a traditional wormwood-flavored liqueur called bäsk, which literally means "bitter." It makes sense they'd come up with this; they need something to keep themselves from freezing to death up there. You also need the strength of a Viking to swig it down.
Malört is the Swedish word for wormwood, and it literally translates to 'moth herb.' It sounds more at home in a witch's apothecary than a wine and spirits store. But it's this word that is used to market the Swedish bäsk liqueur in the United States.
So, you're probably wondering how this Swedish liqueur is connected to the new head of the Catholic church. Is he Swedish? Nope. In fact, he's the first Catholic pope to hail from the United States. We got one!
Talk about another coincidence. Last year's Oscar-nominated film Conclave is about the elaborate tradition the Catholic church institutes after a pope dies. All the cardinals from around the world convene in the Vatican for a series of votes to determine who among them should be the next pope. Almost six months to the day after the film was released, Pope Francis died. So, all those non-Catholics amongst us got a little "how-to pick a new pope" tutorial before the real thing.
Here comes another coincidence: Pope Bob is very familiar with long droughts because he was born in Chicago. But his streak-ending election is far more impressive than the Chicago Cubs' curse that lasted only a paltry 71 years. It takes a special kind of Midwestern grit to beat back literal millennia of strike-outs for American cardinals.
But be careful: comparing Pope Bob to the Chicago Cubs might result in you getting a "papal slap." That's because Pope Bob is a card-carrying White Sox fan. Hailing from a South Side Chicago suburb, he even made an appearance in the stands of the 2005 World Series when the White Sox absolutely trounced the Houston Astros. There's some real spooky Field of Dreams synergy going on here.
There's no doubt at all that Pope Bob has experienced all the Chicago staples. Portillo's, the Italian beef specialists, have already added The Leo to their menu in his honor. And it's very likely that in his wild and crazy youth (a rite of passage for all popes, probably), he took a shot of another Chicago classic: Jeppson's Malört. Finally, the pieces are coming together!
Jeppson's Malört is uniquely Chicagoan. Swedish immigrant Carl Jeppson started brewing and selling the stuff during Prohibition and marketing it as "medicine." Think of him as a Viking Al Capone. He eventually sold his magic elixir to attorney George Brode, who said, 'This stuff tastes awful. We must begin production immediately!'
For a long time, Malört remained a local phenomenon. It became a symbol of the city's toughness and was often worn as a badge of honor amongst young drinkers daring each other to take down a shot. It never really gained the kind of traction needed to go national until 2019, when CH Distillery bought the brand, moved production back to Chicago, and started cranking the stuff out.
Thanks to it now being available in 30 states, there is a new rite of passage: gathering friends together to make a Malört TikTok. And the timing with Pope Bob's pope-ification couldn't be more inspired. Some might even call it a sign from God. According to Google, the search volume for "malört" even reached an all-time high with the recent papal election.
A lot of this crossover content involves replacing the sacramental wine with Malört or the holy water at every church entrance with Malört, but you know what? It works. I love it when people show pride in their local traditions and delicacies.
Now, just wait until we have the first pope from Philadelphia. He'll be offering up "the jawn of Christ" and wheeling cases of Yard's into St. Peter's Basilica.
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