Not bitter about cocktail bitters

Walk into any bar worth a grain of salt today and you’ll find an array of dropper bottles filled with every kind of flavored bitter imaginable. From the classic aromatic bitters like Angostura and Peychards, to smaller companies producing orange, chocolate, walnut, beet, and apple bitters, there is no shortage of cocktail bitters on the market today. Within the last decade this essential ingredient in cocktails went from being on the brink of extinction to having its very own golden era.

While a version of bitters can be traced all the way back to Ancient Egypt where medicinal herbs were found in wine jars, followed by use in monasteries in the Middle Ages, bitters as we know them today originated in the 1700’s. In a Serious Eats article, author Michael Dietsch explains that bitters were created by doctors as a medicinal tonic used to treat various digestion disorders. These tonics were, well, bitter and many found them quite unpleasant to drink. To remedy this, they would mix the tonic with a spirit to make it easier to drink. This became so widely practiced that one of the very first written definitions of the word cocktail in 1806 was “a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters,” according to Peter Smith of the Smithsonian.

One of the most well known cocktail bitters, Angostura, has its roots in 1820’s Venezuela where the German doctor, Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, created the mixture for the army as a digestion remedy. Siegert was searching for a medicinal tonic for the Venezuelen troops and concocted the mixture from a variety of herbs and tree bark in the small trading post town of Angostura, the namesake for the bitters. Soon, the sailors coming into the port would take it as a remedy for seasickness, and would sail away with the concoction, bringing the bitters to popularity around the world.

Unfortunately, the demand for bitters plummeted during the mid 1900’s Prohibition. Journalist Ethan Trex explains in a Mental Floss article that the ban on alcohol (which was used as a means to consume the ingredient), combined with a government crackdown on the medicinal claims caused bitters to nearly go extinct. Only two main brands survived the dark ages to be on our bar cart today: Angostura and Peychards. The so-called golden age of bitters that we see today can be attributed to verteran bartender Gary Regan when he launched his own bitters, Regan’s Orange Bitters No.6, in 2005.

Today, bitters are an essential in bars around the world and on any self respecting at home mixologists bar cart. While the mixture of tree bark, spices, flowers, and fruits, are inedible on their own, they provide essential depth and flavoring to cocktails. Think of it as adding salt to cookies. The cookies aren’t salty, but rather more balanced. The same goes for cocktails. Bitters won’t make the drink bitter, but more well rounded. There are now hundreds of different bitters on the market, and while it is fun playing around with them all, you can also make your own and customize them to your preference! Think of the following recipe below as a loose guideline meant to demonstrate the technique used in crafting your own cocktail bitters. You can throw in any whole spices, fruit, toasted nuts or hard to find tree bark that you like, and as long as you follow the basic steps, you will end up with delectable flavoring to add to your cocktails. What follows is a somewhat basic formula with ingredients you may already have. And if you’re also a baker like myself, try adding a dash to your pies. You’ll thank me later.

Cocktail Bitters

Ingredients

1 orange peel

5 to 6 crushed cardamom pods

2 star anise seeds

A pinch of caraway seeds

2 whole black peppercorn

1 cinnamon stick

2 cups Vodka or other high-proof grain spirit

2 1/4 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

Instructions

1. Combine all flavoring ingredients in a mason jar with the Vodka. Seal the jar and set aside for two weeks. Each day, come back and shake the jar in order to ensure the flavors are infused evenly.

2. After two weeks, strain the Vodka infusion into a new jar using a cheesecloth. Place all of the solids that were strained out into a pot on the stove with 2 cups of water and bring to a simmer. Place this water infusion mixture into a new jar and let sit for one week.

3. After one week, strain the water infusion mixture with a cheesecloth and discard the solids. Combine one part water infusion with one part vodka infusion. If the mixture is still murky, strain again with a cheesecloth

4. Make a rich simple syrup by combining ½ cup sugar and ¼ cup water in a pot on the stove and gently heat while stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved, take off heat and let cool.

5. Once the simple syrup is cool, add it to taste to the infusion. Do not add the full amount of syrup first, start with a small amount and increase how much you add to your personal taste preference, it is okay that not all the syrup is used. Shake the jar with the syrup and infusion mixture to combine.

Your bitters are now ready to use! You can leave them in a jar or put them in glass-droppers for easier use.