Modern Malort Cocktails Letterpress Print

An Ode to the Drink Chicagoans Hate to Love

If you're not familiar with Malort, some might call you lucky. It's been called a lot of things. "The Champagne of Pain." The drink designed to "Unfriend Someone in Person."  Malört is a famously bitter wormwood-infused liqueur made in the Windy City, (originally for Swedish immigrants, according to lore). It's a weird yellow in color, alcoholic, bitter, and sweet all at the same time. Sounds amazing, right? But Chicago loves it. Loves. It.

While it may be the definition of an acquired taste, Malört makes a pretty mean cocktail. Its bitterness adds a bass note to sweeter cocktails, and it pairs exceptionally well with citrus flavors, particularly grapefruit. If you're trying to make a convert out of a non-Chicagoan, a Malört cocktail could be the ticket. Or maybe just a good way to use up that bottle your brother-in-law left at the lake house a few months ago. No judgement.

Modern Malort Cocktails is a letterpress printed guide to creating ten Malört cocktails, distilled into a simple, attractive print that's perfect for hanging in a kitchen or bar, particularly if that bar has a Chicago theme!  It weight in at an impressive 11 x 14 inches (28 x 36 cm), a very standard frame size.

It's décor for the discriminating drinker and suits nearly any style. It makes a perfect pairing with my cocktail notebook, 33 Cocktails.

Fresh-Pressed in Portland

This open-edition print was printed by hand, with love, on  a gluten-powered 1909 Chandler & Price letterpress using mostly soy-based inks. Letterpress is a very traditional way of printing that requires the paper to be printed once for each color used in the design. In this one, the paper goes through three times, once each for red, blue, and yellow, making an impression in the paper with each pass. It gives the print a unique textural quality that's impossible to produce with modern methods.

American-made French Paper

The poster is printed on 100% recycled (30% PCW), chlorine-free French brand paper, made in Niles, Michigan. If you're as big a paper nerd as you are a cocktail nerd, you'll want to know that it's 125# Muscletone in Starch White Cover Stock.