Summary

- Bitter, bitters
- Distillates
- Infusions
- Italians do it better
- Our choice
- The impact of advertising
- In the shape of a bitter


Bitter, bitters
In general, we tend to figure bitters as spirits made with mixed herbs, a high volume of alcohol and a strong taste - a bitter taste, of course. This is not entirely true and requires some preliminary considerations.
Bitters, unlike other spirits and liqueurs, is a term that comprehends different products. This confusion is probably due to the meaning of the word "bitter" as an adjective, referable to beverages that have in common the bitterness of their taste, despite they are produced in totally different ways. So we could run into a distillate that is called bitter as well as an infusion, while finding that the name is the only thing they share: Angostura Bitters, side by side with Fernet Branca, side by side with Aperol, in a list that could take half our bar-shelf. Perhaps the only feature they really have in common is the nature of their recipes: all of them, in fact, have a huge list of ingredients, mostly unknown, that is impossible to reassemble with success without the necessary skilfulness.
In other words, "bitter" is a term that producers use to define a drink with a secret recipe, that is often jealously guarded, generation by generation, within the family that holds it.

Distillates
This is surely true for Angostura Bitters, the first kind of bitter we deal with. Distilled in Trinidad, using the secret recipe from 1824, and the same natural blend of herbs and spices, Angostura aromatic bitters is versatile beyond belief. It has retained its original formulation, one of the few remaining true trade secrets, an international brand that over the centuries has continued to "flavour the world". The label itself gives an insight to the product, with suggestions from savoury sauces to cakes, through crispy vegetables, meats and eventually cocktails.
Dr. J.G.B. Siegert, a German Surgeon General in Simon Bolivar's army in Venezuela, developed his "Amargo Aromatico" to improve appetite and digestive well-being of the soldiers, whose great benefits encouraged Siegert to produce the bitter on a commercial scale and to export it to Trinidad and England. The practice of adding a small amount of herbal bitters to gin in order that it might be sold without taxation under the guise of medicinal liquor, probably originated in England around 1850-1870. This way bitters became quickly popular: the makers of Hostetter's Stomach Bitters, i.e., made millions of pounds in few years selling their bitter.
The bitters trade reached its zenith in the 1860 to 1880 era. Competition was tremendous. Thousands of brands were introduced in England and exported everywhere, producing herbal bitters, root bitters and bark bitters. The market was highly profitable till the passage of the Food and Drug Act of 1906 by which the government cracked down on the sale of medicinal products whose efficacy was questionable. The bitters trade was briefly resurrected with the introduction of prohibition but never reached anywhere near the scale it enjoyed before the turn of the century.
Nowadays Angostura and similar products such as Dr Peychauds and Hoppe Orange Bitters, are widely used in soft drinks cocktail and other alcoholic beverages in the measure of few drops that give peculiar flavour and aromatic odour. Whether it fits or not in a perfect gimlet, as called into question by Raymond Chandler's fans about private eye Philip Marlowe's tastes…



Infusions
Bitters are rightly linked to herbs and various natural essences. In their various versions, they continue to give the idea they are someway healthy. Healthy as herbs are, considered that into herbs we find most of the remedies to illness. Hippocrates was the first to take a bitter drink to aid his digestion. In the Middle Age, monks in monasteries everywhere became the keepers of the secret recipes to create herbs elixirs able to strengthen physical condition while bringing on the spirit: mens sana in corpore sano…
Monastic orders still make wine, beer and liqueurs, and their religious fervour has a commercial streak. The most famous are Benedictine and Chartreuse. The secret formula for Benedictine, believed lost when the Abbey of Fecamp in Normandy was destroyed in 1789 during the French Revolution, turned up in 1863 in the house of Alexandre Le Grand. He modernised the elixir of 27 plants and spices and called it Benedictine. "D.O.M." on the label stands for "Deo Optimo Maximo" (To God, most good, most great). The recipe is said to contain angelica root, arnica flowers, orange peel, thyme, cardamom, peppermint, cassia, hyssop, cloves, cognac and God knows what else.
Carthusian monks still hold the formula for their precious elixir within the walls of Le Grande Chartreuse, the principal convent of the order, in the mountains near Grenoble (French Alps). Marechal d'Estrees gave it to Les Peres Chartreux in 1605, but it can be dated with certainty to a previous age. In those days, monks were the educated and literate elites and had the necessary liqueur production skills to let the complicated formula become a liqueur. A century later the manuscript appeared again, to be brought in Grenoble in 1737. Through many misfortunes, it still belongs to the only ones who deserve it, and who probably can translate its writings into the elixir. The original Chartreuse is 71%abv, but two lighter versions are more popular: a Green about 55%abv and a sweeter Yellow at 40%abv.



continue...