Source : Perth Now news
A Chicago bar has brought together almost 2,000 people for one truly bitter Guinness World Record attempt.
Recess, a bar in the city’s West Loop, said 1,969 people simultaneously knocked back shots of Jeppson’s Malört during the bizarre event over the weekend.
The gathering was billed as a “bad decision for a good cause”, with proceeds raised for Ravenswood Community Services.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker even got involved, stepping behind the bar to pour shots for some of the brave attendees.
Malört has been distilled in the Chicago area since the 1930s and is a beskbrännvin, a wormwood-based Swedish schnapps.
But while the drink has become an iconic part of Chicago culture, it is hardly known for its pleasant taste.
The fiercely bitter liqueur is famously used by Chicagoans to haze unsuspecting visitors from out of town.
One attendee gave Block Club Chicago a particularly brutal assessment of the flavour, describing it as “a mixture of vomit and sweat”.
Despite its reputation, thousands of locals turned up to willingly subject themselves to the notorious spirit.
Susana Mendoza, a city comptroller running for mayor of Chicago, was also among those taking part.
She summed up the appeal of the experience as “the communal suffering [that] brings us together”.
The event’s official count of 1,969 people is particularly fitting for the city, with organisers turning the infamous drink into a mass exercise in local pride.
For many attendees, however, the achievement may have been less about enjoying the liquor and more about proving they could stomach it.
Malört’s reputation has long made it something of a rite of passage in Chicago, where offering the drink to visitors has become a popular prank.
Now, the city’s residents have taken their love-hate relationship with the spirit to a whole new level, knocking back nearly 2,000 shots at once for a record-breaking cause.
