Update, 1/15/2020: It’s time for fans of drinking turpentine-like alcohol to rejoice—Jeppson’s Malört has returned to the District.

Back in December, it appeared that the Chicago-made liquor’s second shortage of 2019 might be permanent, according to purveyors at Shaw dive Ivy and Coney, which was the first local establishment to serve the esoteric drink for its clamoring patrons. Ivy and Coney co-founder Josh Saltzman told DCist at the time that CH Distillery, which acquired Malört in 2018, was done selling it in the D.C. market. CH Distillery has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

But on Tuesday, new cases of the wormwood-based Malört arrived at the 7th Street NW establishment, which is now fully stocked with the drink.

Saltzman says that he has been in talks with CH Distillery since the most recent shortage, showing the company, among other things, the social engagement on the bar’s tweets bemoaning the loss of Malört.

In the interim, Saltzman and his business partner tried their hands at making an ersatz version. They bought wormwood tea bags online and stuck them in a bottle of vodka. “It tasted awful, but not good awful. Just straight-up awful,” he says. “It did not work, but it is a good way to make floor cleaner.” He says the team also “had a lot of offers from people from Chicago to help with a Malört-smuggling ring.”

But ultimately, CH Distillery decided to make its wares available for purchase in D.C. again. On Tuesday night, Ivy and Coney offered $1 Malört shots.

“Someone in last night was drinking it on the rocks,” says Saltzman. “I like Malört, but I wouldn’t go that far.”

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Jeppson’s Malört is not known for being easy to drink. In the span of a minute, various Ivy and Coney employees described its taste as “earwax and gasoline,” “grapefruit and batteries,” and “chewing on a grapefruit rind while someone is stretching a rubber band under your nose.”

But despite, or perhaps because of, its truly unique flavor, the wormwood-based liqueur has become a staple of the Shaw dive bar (among other establishments). And now, for the second time in a year, the singular alcohol is in short supply.

Only this time, the Malört scarcity might be permanent.

Ivy and Coney co-founder Josh Saltzman says that his liquor distributor told the bar that the Chicago distillery that produces Malört will no longer sell it in the D.C. market. It was CH Distillery’s acquisition of Malört in late 2018 that prompted the dearth of the drink earlier this year.

CH Distillery has not responded to a request for comment. Back in January, CH Distillery founder and head distiller Tremaine Atkinson told DCist that the company was “horribly upset about [the shortage] because we want everyone to have the great and wonderful experience of drinking Malört at all times.”

So how much longer will Ivy and Coney be able to stock the drink?

Saltzman says that the alcohol distributor told his beverage manager that he only had a dozen cases left. “Our beverage director was like, ‘Great, we’ll take them all,'” he says, but apparently, other places had bought some of them.

So Ivy and Coney got one case, which holds 12 bottles. “We literally just got the last case dropped off,” says Saltzman. “My guess is that it will be gone by the end of the week. I will be shocked if it lasted any longer than that.”

After the last bitter drop has been drank, the bar will consider other options. “Maybe we’ll have to make our own concoction,” he says.

One thing making Saltzman feel a little better about the devastating news is the response he’s gotten from the general public since tweeting about it from the bar’s account. “It’s good to know that other people have as bad of taste in liquor as we do,” he says.

Previously:
It Might Taste Like Turpentine, But The Malört Shortage Has Some Washingtonians Bereft