Illinois doesn’t win often. And, thus, Chicago has made celebrating its losses an art form.
There have been bright spots, of course. The Cubs won a World Series. The Sky earned a WNBA title. The Bear has shined a much-needed light on the culinary wizardry that takes place in the midwest.
But mostly? Searing defeat. The 100 years of Cubs losses that preceded their breakthrough. The ongoing existence of the post-1985 Bears. The ceased existence of the rat hole.
Dealing with this has sustained one of America’s finest, worst liquors. Jeppsen’s Malört is distilled pain. A drink that tastes like a middle school breakup. A concoction of fermented Band-aids and Swisher Sweets wrappers, its existence is a point of pride for Chicagoans and a hazing ritual for visitors. Malört tastes so bad it creator was able to avoid persecution during prohibition by simply offering it to police officers, who roundly agreed it must be medicine because no sane person would ever choose to drink it.
The fine denizens of Chicago understand it is bad and power through anyway. This is the spirit of a city that’s rebuilt after devastating fire and literally jacked itself up above the mud that threatened to consume it. It is a city that embraces pain and rallies around it.
It is also a city that understands multiplying one negative times another creates a positive. From, uh, Pyramid Chad on Twitter. Language is NSFW and accurate.
2024 marks the emergence of cicada brood XIX, a swarm of gordita-shelled sky disasters set to darken the skies with busy wings and droning song before peeing, mating and dying in some order (actualy, probably that one). And because Chicago understands how to weaponize its defeat, you can now rip a shot of bug-laced Malört at the city’s Noon Whistle Brewery.
Prepare yourself for a once-in-a-lifetime experience because starting today, we're thrilled to unveil our exclusive locally harvested Cicada-Infused Malört at Lombard Brewpub! pic.twitter.com/n5s6R1XvsO
— Noon Whistle Brewing (@noonwhistlebrew) May 21, 2024
I’m gonna go ahead and say it.
Would.
I’ve long been intrigued by the Sourtoe Cocktail Club, a Dawson City, Yukon tradition where Canadians and visitors sip whiskey from a glass with an mummified amputated toe inside it. That’s a better spirit and a worse garnish, but you don’t drink the toe — you actually get run out of town if you do. You don’t have to pound the bug in your infused Malört — it’s the worm to the gasoline alternative’s tequila — but after a few shots, is crunching down on a cicada really going to make things worse?
I mean probably, but bracing for the worst and persevering anyway is Chicago’s whole thing. Starting your night with a cicada crunch and a mysterious bottled fluid extracted from ancient sarcophagi once sealed by the weight of 1,000 curses ensures you’ve got nowhere to go but up.
Or to the police station. 50/50. Anyway, hand me the bug juice, I have bad decisions to make.