In Joe Swanberg's 2013 film "Drinking Buddies", drinking a shot of Malört is described as a Chicago tradition for erasing past mistakes. In it actor Jason Sudeikis riffs that Malört is like swallowing a burnt condom filled with gasoline. In a similar vein, Tremaine Atkinson, founder of CH Distillery, was introduced to Malört when he first moved to Chicago, he compared it to "taking a bite out of a grapefruit and then drinking a shot of gasoline". Malört makes up half of the beer cocktail called the "Chicago Handshake"; the other half is an Old Style beer.