My Pops has been on this kick of bitters and soda water as a replacement for diet coke. We had a discussion at family dinner some months back about what actually goes into bitters. The ingredients listed on the bottle aren’t too specific: flavors and spices. Not  long after, I came upon this America’s Test Kitchen recipe for cocktail bitters. The folks’ anniversary was approaching so I figured, homemade bitters! Perfect.

I read up on various methods. It made sense to infuse each flavor individually but many of those recipes called for a weeks long wait and I didn’t have the time (though the gift ended up belated for other reasons).  The America’s Test Kitchen dude spoke to the issue, claiming his ratio of flavor agent to booze was high enough that the time could be shortened. I’m pretty sure he’s wrong about that. The first batch wasn’t nearly strong enough. It takes a full dropper to affect the flavor of one’s drink. Not to say they aren’t tasty, they are. But for the next batch of infusions, I’m going guesstimate times based on this dude and this book, in the hopes they’ll do their job with the more traditional amount of a few drops.

Also, there seem to be two schools of thought about whether or not the herbs and spices need to be simmered in water post infusion to extract water soluble flavors. The thinking is that high proof alcohol doesn’t have enough water to get at them but that using lower proof leaves behind some of the alcohol soluble flavors. I experimented with both methods and found that the second step of simmering lead to cloudy extractions. I suspect there was fault in my technique but there are enough folks who eschew this step that I feel comfortable focusing on the length of time each extraction soaks.

Upon opening the gift, Pops reminded me we have a way back relative who invented vanilla extract. In keeping with family (not quite) tradition, he suggested I try to make a business out of my efforts. You know, in case this whole writing thing wasn’t taking up enough of my time. I’m content with gifting them. There are so many variables and recipes. One could spend a life time perfecting the practice. I suspect I’ll get bored before I get good but for the time being, I’m very much enjoying the science experiment of it all.

(Lots of gratitude to David La Cava for his beautiful label design.)