Bitters

In case you've lived under a rock for the past few years - there is a cocktail revolution going on. Bars all over the country are concocting all sorts of delicious drinks, including house made bitters. I've heard that bitters to a cocktail is like salt to food - it just enhances and makes your drink that much better. Also in my pharmacist mind it's nice to go back to the days of old - when a pharmacist made these sort of elixirs with herbs that were for all sorts of ailments.

I've made bitters before and they are not hard but they do take some time and special ingredients. This time around I made 2 batches out of the book "Bitters" by Brad Thomas Parsons. If you are interested in this cocktail revolution - this is a good read - lots of cocktail recipes as well as tips of what premade bitters are best and some history.

The recipes I made were a House Bitters (like Angostura) and an Orange Bitters. In the pictures, the house bitters have a whiskey base and so is darker. The orange bitters have a vodka base and gradually turned orange.

starting ingredients

everything together

2 weeks later, shaking jar daily

strain out the solids

add water and boil

cool, then add back to jars and let sit for 1 week

strain again and add to alcohol 

add rich syrup and you are done!

So I said it was an easy process but it does have some steps. If you are interested in the recipe or where to get the various ingredients, let me know and I'll send it to you. Since I got this from a book, I"ll let the copyright stand, for now. These are the most common types of bitters you will find in recipes. I think the next kind I will make is a celery bitters for bloody marys!