The market · Liqueurs and bitters · The Americas

Angostura bitters

The aromatic bitters in the oversized paper wrapper, made in Trinidad: gentian bitterness with clove, cinnamon and dried fruit. By the dash, it seasons a drink the way salt seasons food.

clove · cinnamon · gentian

What to do with it

Rosa Ibarra's Clarified milk punch, mezcal and pineappleAngostura bitter would temper its sweetnessKenji Hara's Milk punch, with hojichaAngostura bitter would temper its sweetness
Classics built on it
The cocktail barBenton's Old FashionedBourbon washed with bacon fat, stirred down with maple and Angostura: the drink that made fat-washing a bar technique.1 version here

Goes with

bourbonrye whiskeysugarlemon peel

Cooked with, here

brown butter-washed bourbonmaple syruporange bitter

How much, here

Fat-washed old fashioned, brown butter2 dashes angostura bittersRosa Ibarra

What cooks here have learned

“A dash of orange bitters”Rosa Ibarra · Fat-washed old fashioned, brown butter v4“Nutty, not greasy. Orange bitters?”Rosa Ibarra · Fat-washed old fashioned, brown butter v3

Knowing it

Where to buy
Any supermarket. A bottle lasts years.
A little history
First made as a medicine in the 1820s in Angostura, Venezuela (now Ciudad Bolívar); the company later moved to Trinidad.
Worth knowing
At 44.7% it's a spirit too — whole measures of it make a drink. In a stirred drink, count the dashes and keep them the same each time; two dashes is about 2ml.

Kitchens that keep it in

New York, Mexico City, London, BarcelonaThe cocktail barSpirit, acid and sugar balanced to the gram — and lately a lab's worth of technique: clarifying, fat-washing, infusing, carbonating, until a drink can taste of a whole dish.9 classics · 4 cooked here

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