Bitters in Cocktail at Home Bar
Here, look at all that you need to know about your Home Bar basics. Carve out that precious square footage to make your room one of the most sacred of household additions. Turning out top-notch drinks while you are still in your slippers is a crazy experience beyond good intentions. Go through the tools to agonize, bottles to buy, and techniques to master for maintaining a posh home bar. Navigate your home bar basics here.
Coming to Cocktails Again
It is technically not a cocktail unless and until it has bitters. Centuries-old periodicals credited with the first written word ‘Cocktail’ specifically mention that this drink should comprise of four main ingredients, spirits, sugar, water, and bitters. However, the American palate drifted towards the sweeter things in life for much of the last century. Bitters were commonly ignored by the bartenders.
Now, once again the decade-long boom in producing cocktails is proving that only a few things can add depth and complexity to the drink as easily and effortlessly like a dash of bitters do. Bitters could be termed as a seasoning when your drink seems flat, this is an answer.
The Cocktails Backstory
Alcohol infused with botanicals, spices, and herbs is called bitters. They have been around since the snake oil days of the 19th century. They were believed to cure almost everything from malaria to heartburn during this period. Officers in the Union Army during the Civil War called ‘Bitters’ the soldier’s safety-guard. T
he drink was able to protect against the poisonous tendency of the impure river waters and bayous that were spreading the fatal maladies of the Southern swamps.
Wising Up to the Fictitious Medical Benefits
Eventually, the Americans wised up to these fictitious medical benefits. Before long, the bitters were given a pass, only to be rediscovered in the 1990s by forward-looking bartenders. Bitters are as essential to home bars now as gin and whiskey. Hundreds of brands have flooded the market in recent years that makes it difficult to decide as to what is worth your money. Understanding what will sit around taking up valuable shelf space took time.
What Experts Say About Bitters
It is important to do some soul-searching before taking up the journey down the bitters’ bunny hole. Are you a mixer of martinis or a brown-spirits imbiber? Do you enjoy flying the happy-hour Tiki flag? Exploring these ideas will enable you to experiment with products that fit your taste profile.
It will help you build the right kind of pantry for your kitchen. Your pantry should be looking a lot different for someone who cooks mostly Italian than the one who appreciates Thai food.
Equal Opportunity Boozers
There are a few basic categories of bitters for equal-opportunity boozers. Aromatic bitters are the most popular ones that deserve your attention. The founding fathers included cocktail tinctures like the Peychaud’s and Angostura. Both these cocktail tinctures are 19th-century workhorse concoctions.
They alternate between notes of cinnamon, licorice, and warm spices while sharing a gentian root base. There would be no Vieux Carre, Sazerac, Old Fashioned, Manhattan, or any number of other classic cocktails without them.
Working Your Way to Fruit Bitters
Work your way to fruit bitters from here. While the most prominent fruit is orange, you can also include grapefruit, cucumber, peach, cherry, and a host of other varieties. Lighter spirits like tequila and gin tend to pair well with fruit bitters. You could also add a stab of texture to citrusy drinks like Margaritas and Gimlets.
The Opposite Side of Flavor Chart
You can find some rich bitters on the opposite side of the flavor chart. The gamut runs from coffee and chocolate to walnut and pecan. These rich bitters are big and bold statements. They play extremely well with barrel-aged spirits like bourbon and rum.
Esoteric Bitters
Last, but not the least, include the esoteric but fast-growing bitters. They make for very memorable cocktails. They are extremely capable of balancing out the sweetness in a drink. They contain flavors like olive, chili pepper, and rosemary that you will not find in the spirit itself.
Experimenting is the Basis of Experience
Pamper your tastes! Experiment! How about taking a simple drink like Gin & Tonic to mix with multiple versions of different bitters? Adding a dash of cardamom bitters can give you an extra spicy cocktail. The cucumber bitter can introduce a cooling element while lavender bitter will tighten up things. The question is simple. Which one do you like at that given point of time?
Taste as Many Varieties Before You Settle
Begin with orange bitters, Peychaud’s, and Angostura. Build and work your way up from there until you find the recipes you like. Rarely used bottles will add to dust and clutter as space is premium in a home bar. Taste as many varieties from as many categories that you can before you settle.
There are chances that you have a wide variety of bitters to choose from. Do not get caught up on brand names, lock in on the flavor you like and then add that up to your home bar. Your bitters library should be a place that is hard to stop.