The Bitter
Truth
Not too long
ago, I competed in the South African leg of the Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge
in Johannesburg at Liquid Chefs in Rosebank and grew a new found passion for
Bitters! Robert Heugel and Kevin Floyd, from Drinkdogma.com, refer to Bitters,
as the “salt and pepper of cocktails” The mixology comp was won by a very
talented, young Johannesburg mixologist called Dom Walsh! Enjoy your time in
Trinidad, Dom! Oh how I loath you! Kidding! Super jealous! Hahahaha, but you can’t win them all, so moving
right along!
After the
comp I was reminded that another good friend of mine Asaf Yechiel(mixologist
from The Orphanage, Cape Town), who represented South Africa with me in Mexico
at the Tahona Society Cocktail Competition, had made his own bitters for his
entry cocktail for this competition and I was inspired to do the same! So I
started to do some research into the subject. Before I get to the nitty gritty,
I would just like to share my competition entries from the Angostura’s Global
Cocktail Challenge – maybe give these a spin at home or in your local bar! They
didn’t place too badly!
1.
Babash
Glass: Jam Jar
Method: Flame Caramelize Sugar and Glaze Rosemary, Build and Stir
Ingredients:
37.5ml Bombay Saphire Gin
12.5ml
Martini Rosso
Lemon
and Vanilla Sugar
Rosemary
Homemade
Gingerbeer(still water, brewer’s yeast, raisons, sugar, fresh ginger)
Angostura
Bitters(use an atomizer to flame Angostura Bitters)
Garnish: Rosemary, Lemon Zest and Bitter Spray
2.
Trini Thyme
Glass: Crystal Tulip
Method: Muddle, Shake and Fine Strain
Ingredients:
50ml
Bacardi Oak Heart
12.5ml
Buttlers Van Der Hum
1
shot glass Black berries
1
stick Thyme
Angostura
Bitters
Homemade Pomegranate
and grapefruit Soda
Garnish: Thyme, Grapefruit Skin and Bitters Spray
Getting back
to the purpose of this blog: Making your own Bitters at home! So I looked at
a number of sites and blogs on the net
on the production of bitters and I found that for me the most informative was http://drinkdogma.com/how-to-make-your-own-bitters-for-cocktails/.
Other helpful sites and blogs were:
For the most part, making your own bitters isn’t
very cost effective and the infusion process takes quite a while – a month to
be exact! But can you really put a price on creating your uniquely flavoured
bitters?? I think not!
So as it stands, there are 4 components to any
Bitters:
·
Spirit
·
Herb
·
Spice
·
Fruit
The Spirit/Liquor – the selected spirit needs to
be of a high proof – preferably a pure grain spirit with little to no flavour.
The reason being, is that the higher the proof of the spirit, the more flavours
are released during the infusion process.
Infusion is the process of extracting
chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, oil
or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over
time (a process often called steeping). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infusion
I struggled to get my hands on a high proof
spirit in port Elizabeth, so I used Stroh Rum. Before I initiated the infusion
process however, I filtered the rum a number of times, in order for it to lose
some of it’s ‘rum’ flavour. I have heard of people also making use of a Rye Whiskey
– it is of a lower proof, but adds wonderful spicy flavours.
The Herb. So many bitters and even more Herbal
componants. Here I had to take into account what I could get my hands on in
South Africa. Limited resources usually spark initiative and creativity. Most
bitter-makers usually insist on using Quassia Wood, Fennel Seed, Fringe Tree
Bark, Barberry Root Bark and Burdock Root.
The Spice. This is a bit of an easier ingredient
to get your hands on and I made use of cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, aniseed,
coriander seed, cloves, green pepper corn, flash-dried thyme, cumin seed,
ginger flake, allspice berry and juniper berry. You can use just about any
spice you can think of to infuse, as you can blend many different combinations
together to create many different bitter flavours.
The last component is fruit. This is where
the bitters get’s its bitterness and flavour from. I separately infused citrus
skin – orange, lemon and grapefruit, as well apple skin. Other ingredients that
can be infused are cocoa, hibiscus, rhubarb, fresh cherry etc.
I placed each individual ingredient in a
separate jar with 50ml of Stroh Rum and sealed it for infusion! It is now week
1 and the flavours are drawing out beautifully. To be continued...
