Two marketers gave the Chicago Handshake its bitter modern recipe

view of modern skyscrapers and elevated train in downtown chicago illinois usa

In the 1990s, I was introduced to the Chicago Handshake as a shot of Jagermeister and a beer. I was lucky; the modern version is far more disgusting.

A Chicago Handshake now means a shot of Jeppson’s Malört served with an Old Style beer. It was not always so specific. Chicago beer historian Liz Garibay says the name once covered any shot followed by a beer chaser. Malört promoter Sam Mechling later teamed up with an Old Style representative to make the two-brand version into a boilermaker special.

Both halves of the Chicago Handshake took roundabout routes to the city. Old Style was first brewed in Wisconsin in 1902, reached Chicago during the 1930s, and cemented its local identity by sponsoring the Cubs beginning in 1950. It is Chicago’s cheap beer of choice. Malört descended from Swedish wormwood bitters and survived in Chicago after Carl Jeppson began making it during Prohibition. Malört was deemed too disgusting to be anything but medicine, and its distillation and sale were still allowed.

Malört spent decades lurking behind Chicago bars before Sam Mechling began promoting it through parties, social media and merchandise around 2012. NPR described it in 2013 as a “secret handshake” among bartenders. By 2016, Malört and Old Style were running a five-bar Chicago Handshake challenge complete with collectible coins. Folklore had acquired a marketing department.

The most Chicago part may be how quickly marketing became history.