The Chicago Handshake
Eat and drink your way through Chicago’s neighbourhoods on a delicious, and not so delicious, cycling tour
Head tilted skyward, the rim of the glass hits my lips and the Malort slams into my mouth in one violent shot.
I grimace, my eyes water slightly and I finally gag a bit. The disgusting taste lingers. Malort, a Chicago invention of vodka-meets-wormwood to create a foul-beyond-belief liqueur, has been described alternately as tasting like distilled bug spray or what soap washes its mouth out with.
But this palate-punishing ritual is required if I’m to complete the Chicago Handshake.
The Windy City’s signature drink is actually a shot of Malort chased by a glug of Dog Days lager by Illinois brewer Two Brothers.
The beer is cold and fruity, the complete opposite of the repugnant liqueur.
With a laugh, our tour guide, Gabe Fries of Bobby’s Chicago Bike Hike, explains that’s the point of the handshake — repulsive followed by refreshing, abominable followed by appetizing.
My wife and I are on a cycling food tour of the Windy City and the Chicago Handshake is included at stop No. 4.
After downing our handshakes at Bucktown Pub, Fries asks our group of 10 cyclists if anybody would voluntarily consume another.
Everyone shouts no until one of the girls from New York puts up her hand.
The entire group clamoured for seconds, though, at all the other stops.
Since our tour was billed as the high-brow of Bobby’s food bike adventures, it avoided the cliches of Chicago deep-dish pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs.
(Although Bobby’s does serve up pizza pie and dogs on its original bike food tour.)
As such, our foray included peddling through downtown to the Fulton Market District, a former meatpacking district turned restaurant-and-tech hotspot.
Google has stationed offices here and celebrity chef Rick Bayless has opened Cruz Blanca, where we nosh on wood-fired chorizo sausage tostadas accompanied by brewed-on-site Paloma ale in the bright upstairs tasting room.