PEI Liquor - Celebrate Fall 2020

sparked new interest in both traditional and innovative bitters products. Thanks to the recent bitters boom, there’s a plethora of innovative new flavours for both amateur and professional mixologists to experiment with, and some enthusiasts are even making their own concoctions! There are many types of bitters, and understanding the flavor profile of each will help you to de- termine which will be most useful for your cocktail needs. Most bitters recipes can be categorized as either aromatic, fruity, herbal, floral, chocolate, spiced, spicy or celery. The number of different bitters on the market can be overwhelming, especially for a budding cocktail enthusiast. If you’re looking to build your bitters collection, it is wise to start with a bottle of the aromatic variety like the classic Angostura. Bitters can be used to flavour a drink the same way you might use salt or spices to season a dish; the intensity can be used to accent existing flavours, add new ones, and even soften the sometimes harsh flavours of high-proof spirits like whiskey, rum and brandy. Since the flavours are highly concentrated, all it takes is a few drops of bitters to add some serious dimension to your drinks.The sky’s the limit when it comes to integrating creative bitters flavours into your cocktails, but it’s a good idea to taste the bitters on their own first, just to see what you’re working with. If you’ve never made a cocktail with bitters before, start small with one to two drops per cocktail, as you would with a pinch of salt in cooking. A little bitters go a long way, and you can always add more to enhance bold flavours. Bitters play well with practically every mixed drink, so the addition will almost definitely enhance any drink you already know and love.

Bitters are a key component of any home bartender’s kit, and essential to many classic cocktails. We can credit the craft cocktail resurgence of the last decade or so for the renewed interest in these potent and often bitter liquids, but what are they, and which ones should you stock your bar with? How can you use them in alcoholic drinks? Fortunately, in this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know for using this bartending essential. Bitters are boozy, highly concentrated flavor extracts made by infusing botanicals like barks, flowers, roots, berries, fruits, herbs and spices in high-proof alcohol. Once the botanicals have been steeped in the alcohol and the spirit has absorbed those flavors, the ingredients are strained from the liquid and it’s diluted to reduce the proof before bottling. Alcoholic bitters have been around for many centuries-even before cocktails existed- but they came in vogue during the 19th century when they were touted as medicine- curing everything from in- digestion to insomnia. It wasn’t until the 1800s that bitters were appreciated beyond their medicinal properties for the way they added complexity to cocktails. Bitters had their heyday in the 1800s before the federal government finally began regulating these products, which meant lowering the proofs, adding ingredients labels and regulating medical claims. The final straw for many brands was Prohibition, when the bitters were outlawed along with other alcoholic beverages. Only Angostura and Peychaud’s brands survived, and they continue to remain brand leaders to this day. Flash forward about a century, and the early 2000’s craft cocktail resurgence has

A COCKTAIL LOVER’S GUIDE TO BITTERS

CELEBRATE FALL 2020

CELEBRATE FALL 2020

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