How To Make Bitters

I’ve been asked many times, by many people about the “mystery” of making bitters, and today, finally, I am going to address this question.

Before we go into how to make bitters, let’s have a very brief discussion of what bitters are.

Bitters were originally used as medicine, curing pretty much every ailment under the sun but usually centered around issues with digestion (have you ever added Angostura bitters to soda or ginger ale to help settle your stomach? If you haven’t, give it a go; it works.) Unlike today, bitters were usually taken by themselves, and it wasn’t until the late 1700’s that people started adding them to spirits (in themselves a cure-all) giving birth to the cocktail (and cocktail bitters). Today, cocktail bitters are added to one’s tipple to introduce subtle new flavors and help integrate all of the components of the libation together, offering up a much more complex and interesting cocktail. Bitters while bitter tasting by themselves are usually only applied in small drops or dashes and will not make a cocktail itself bitter, a common misconception.

The first mystery of making bitters is quite simple: there is no mystery. It is a simple, but time consuming process involving macerating herbs and spices with alcohol and then filtering and bottling said maceration.

Looking through arcane tomes, and even the internet, one can find many recipes for bitters, and these are a good starting point for making your own, but almost every recipe that I have encountered has been flawed in one way, which I will reveal as we go on.

In theory, bitters are composed of three components: the bittering agent, the flavor and the solution. When making my own bitters I always keep this formula in mind. Let’s go through them.

THE BITTERING AGENT
This will be the ingredient that will make your bitters, well, bitter. Common ingredients are gentian, quassia or even wormwood (famous as an ingredient in absinthe). These flora are usually extremely bitter, and a little will go a long way.

THE FLAVOR
This is where you have your chance to show off your creativity. Simple bitters will have one flavor, such as orange or peach or grapefruit. But the sky is the limit when it comes to bitters. Want to add vanilla-cardamom? Go for it! Lemongrass and ginger? Why not? Xocolatl Mole? Been done!

Obviously more ingredients will add more complexity to your bitters, just make sure that they play together and remember, sometimes simple one and two flavor bitters are better.

THE SOLUTION
Most bitters are kept in alcohol, but you can make non-alcoholic bitters if you really wanted (they will have a very short shelf life). I usually try to find the highest proof alcohol I can get my hands on, as this seems to extract more flavor from my herbs and spices as well as give the final product an indefinite shelf life (alcohol is a preservative after all). For lighter bitters I may use a high-proof vodka or gin as my solution, while rum, whiskey and brandy are the spirits that I look to when creating heavier, darker bitters.

Now, if you read most bitter recipes you will see that they have you throw all of the ingredients in a jar and wait a period of time (anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months) after which you will filter and bottle your final product. Herein lay the problem with almost every bitters recipe I’ve read: control.

Different ingredients will release their respective flavors at different speeds and so to circumvent the probability of one ingredient’s flavor overpowering the batch, I give each flavor profile its own vessel. For example, if I were to do a batch of simple orange bitters, I would start with two jars of alcohol, one with gentian and the other with orange peel. After a period of one week I would strain out the gentian, and after three weeks I would strain out the orange peel. I would then slowly add the gentian mixture to the orange peel until the desired level of bitterness was reached. It is with this blending technique that I can ensure that I will never ruin a batch of bitters beyond repair, as an over powering flavors can be adjusted by increasing the other flavor components of the batch.

As for filtering, I am a lazy man. When I first started making my bitters, I used coffee filters, but as any of you who ever tried to do this knows, it is extremely time consuming and laborious. I then switched over to a Büchner funnel with a hand vacuum, but even this can be a little too much work for a slothful fellow of my nature. The solution? Water filters. You can just throw them in the top and come back a couple of hours later with a beautifully filtered finished product. Currently I am using a Pūr filtering system. Best money I’ve ever spent.

As most people who have tried my cherry bitters end up wanting a bottle for themselves, I’ve decided to give you the recipe, so you can make them at home yourselves (if you have the time and patience) and leave me the hell alone. (All I do is give and give…..)

CHERRY BITTERS
12 oz dried tart cherries
1 oz milk thistle
4 oz lemon peel
1 tablespoon black walnut leaf
1 tablespoon bitter blend (rose petal, burdock, milk thistle, dandelion, apple, barberry, fennel, fringe tree)
1 tablespoon wormwood
2 teaspoons clove
4 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons vanilla

Place 4 oz of cherries in an empty 750mL bottle and fill with 101˚ bourbon
Repeat with the rest of the cherries (3 bottles in total)
Place the milk thistle and walnut leaf in an empty 750mL bottle and fill with 100˚ rye
Place lemon peel in an empty 750mL bottle and fill with 100˚ (or higher) vodka
Place bitter blend and wormwood in an empty 750mL bottle and fill with 100˚ rye
Place the remaining ingredients in an empty 750mL bottle and fill with 101˚ bourbon
Shake all ingredients daily

After one week strain out bitter blend bottle
After three weeks strain out all but cherry filled bottles
After four weeks strain out cherry filled bottles

Blend all liquids together to achieve desired flavor profile
Add 6 oz honey vodka (42 Below) (for added complexity)
Add 4 oz Amaro Nonino (for needed sweetness, texture and complexity. Caramelized sugar would also do)

Taste again and make adjustments if necessary (perhaps sugar if too bitter)
if one flavor is too subtle, take the leftover solids that have been filtered and add water and cook over heat to extract more flavor: add to mix until balanced

Filter the resulting bitters
Place bitters in shiraz-soaked French oak cask and age for two months
Extract bitters from barrel and filter again
Add two liters of water and stir
Bottle

Depending on your cherries your finished product may or may not have enough cherry flavor. The first time I made my cherry bitters, this was the case. An easy fix that doesn’t entail you having to wait for more cherries to infuse would be to add a couple of ounces of Cherry Heering. Remember, there are no rules here, you are just trying to make a complex, flavorful bitters that will work in cocktails. How you get there is your business.

As the cherry bitters recipe is quite complex, I’ll give you the recipe to a brand of bitters that were probably more popular than even Angostura in Jerry Thomas’ day: Boker’s Bitters. (If you’re reading Jerry’s book and see a reference for Bogart’s bitters, they are actually one and the same. It’s a typo)

BOKER’S BITTERS (from Workshop Receipts, 1883)
1 ½ oz quassia
1 ½ oz calamus
1 ½ oz catechu (powdered)
1 oz cardamom
2 oz dried orange peel

Macerate for 10 days in ½ gallon strong whiskey, and then filter and add 2 gal. water.
Color with malva flowers.

Just remember my rules for separating the ingredients (the cardamom is especially strong in this and will probably be the first thing that I would strain out) and filtering and this is an easy one to make.

Also, the amount of water called for is to make aperitif bitters, we’re trying to make cocktail bitters, so let’s only add ½ gallon of water.

Seeing as we don’t have the kind of whiskey as was called for in the 1800’s, I put the orange peel in vodka (Everclear if you can get it) the cardamom and catechu in 151˚ rum and the rest in 100˚ bourbon.

There you have it, you are now on your way to making an endless supply of bitters, limited by only your imagination and palate. Let me know how yours turned out, and if you have some extra, send it my way!

Pictures and Cherry Bitters recipe by:

Jamie Boudreau
Cocktail Whisperer
.

~ by Jamie Boudreau on April 22, 2008.