Aromatic bitters are a high-proof tincture of bitter roots, peel, and spice, used by the dash. They are closer to salt than to amaro. You should feel the drink get longer and more knit together. You should not be able to list the bitters as a flavor the way you can list the whiskey. Orange bitters are the same idea with the peel in front. Peychaud’s-style bitters lean anise and gentian and turn a rye drink a different color, inside and out.
Bought bitters are worth owning — a bottle of aromatic and a bottle of orange will carry you through the templates. Making them teaches you what those dashes actually are, and gives you a seasoning that matches your bar instead of a factory’s.
What does the work
- The solvent: a spirit at 100 proof or higher. Bonded bourbon, an overproof rye, or a high-proof neutral. At 80 proof it still works; give it more days.
- The bittering: gentian root is the one to learn first. It is plainly bitter, a little floral, and sold dried. Cinchona bark (the quinine bitter) is optional and easy to overdo — keep it small, and don’t “fix” a weak batch by doubling it.
- The aroma: dried citrus peel, coriander, cassia, cardamom, clove. This is the part people recognize.
- A little body, sometimes: a few chopped raisins. You will not taste them as raisins at a dash. You will miss them if the bitter tastes only like perfume and sting.
- 200 ml spirit, 100 proof or higher
- 20 g dried orange peel
- 6 g cut gentian root
- 2 g cassia or cinnamon chips
- 1 g whole cloves
- 4 g raisins, chopped
- Optional: 2 g dried culinary wormwood. Skip it if you can’t buy it. Do not forage it.
Jar it. Shake daily. Start tasting on day 5 — not straight. Put a dash into a spoon of whiskey with a pinch of sugar and a few drops of water, and compare it to the same spoon with a dash of a bitters you already know. Strain through a coffee filter somewhere between day 10 and day 14. Bottle it. It keeps.
- 200 ml high-proof spirit
- 30 g mixed dried orange and lemon peel
- 4 g cardamom pods, cracked
- 2 g coriander seed, lightly crushed
- 1 g gentian root
Same method. This is the dash for a martini and for a light rum old fashioned, when aromatic bitters would feel too dark.
Practice
- Put one dash, then two, then four, into three otherwise identical old fashioneds. Stop at the dash count where you start tasting the bottle instead of the drink.
- If you make the house aromatic, write the day you strained it on the label. Taste it against your bought bottle a week later. Decide which one is for whiskey and which one is for aged rum.