alt Hacker NewsI think Underberg is a good comp. The problem with Malort is not that its bitter or the flavor profile of it, its the _quality_ of the drink. Underberg is bitter but well made and it tells dramatically when drinking them side by side.
Amaro's generally speaking are _very_ popular in Chicago. When I first moved here and was more of an out at bars type of person it was _extremely_ common to drink Amaro, especially at the end of a work night. But you'd drink the amaro's you'd expect (Fernet especially). No one would choose Malort because it wasn't any cheaper than a good amaro and was just worse.
The story of Malort is the story of good marketing and pre-social media 'influencers' getting involved. The book mentioned in the article also covers the quirky story of the original Malort brand and its interesting if you like that sort of thing. But as a drink its just uninteresting.
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Oh yeah I'm not saying Malort is good. i find it mediocre. I feel like I've had worse (which I can't remember the name of because why). I enjoy em enough that if i was at a bar that only had Malort I'd drink it. (I don't like the menthol in Fernet Branca, although many do. Malort has no menthol flavor as I recall?)
But the marketing campaign, whether crowdsourced viral or intended, is that it's like this uniquely horrible thing.
If anyone is familiar with the category and enjoys it (certainly not everyone does), they won't find it particularly hard to drink or unusual. They will find it not very good, yes. Obviously that's not something you want to market.
As you say, it's not interesting. But "the worst drink you'll ever have" would of course be very interesting! It's not that Malort is great, it's that in fact it's not interesting at all, it's just a mediocre bitter digestif.
Unicum might be another good comparable, that's actually good if you like that sort of thing?
You want something that I think really is so bad that I have trouble imagining it's not just a novelty challenge drink -- and yet I think it's not and some people really do like it -- while even sticking to Nordic region (they like some weird stuff)....
https://koskenkorva.com/en/koskenkorva-salmiakki
"Salty" licorice is a misnomer, there's nothing actually salty about it, the "salt" is ammonium chloride. It's vodka flavored with black licorice (I'm with you so far), and the taste of ammonia.