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.