I really enjoy the ceremony and elegance of mixing a good cocktail, and my lovely girlfriend found cinchona bark at a local store, and that got me started on making my own stuff. I’m well on my way to becoming an amateur mixologist, though every time I use that term I want to punch myself in the face.
So far, I’ve made cocktail bitters, tonic syrup, turbinado rich syrup, and sage and vanilla simple syrups. The syrups obviously aren’t really anything special, but they are piss easy to make (note: do not use actual piss), and they do make for some tasty sodas and cocktails.
I have two jars of homemade cocktail bitters maturing in my liquor cabinet. The apple bitters comes out tomorrow for stage two, and there’s another week on the mint bitters. I filtered a bit of the mint bitters early, and it’s great in soda water with some sage syrup.
Also, my spices and cedar sheets have arrived, so I can start the charred cedar and aromatic bitters tomorrow.
I think I may have gone a bit overboard.
I’m finding it enjoyable so far, though I’m not a super-patient person, so the weeks of waiting for the bitters is a bit trying. I’d almost rather put in two hours of work and have something at the end than a half hour and then have to wait a month for the result.
Does anyone else have any stories, recipes, warnings, etc.?
Simple syrup simmered with cloves, vanilla, cinnamon, lemon zest (or lemon oil), orange zest ( orange oil also) and ginger for about 30 minutes. you can strain it all out or just leave the floaters in there, I grind it all up so lots of floating bits of excitement.
Mixes remarkably well as 1pt syrup, 1pt lemon or lime juice, 1pt water and as many pts of rye whiskey as required.
Downsides, it mixes rather too well as 1pt syrup, 1pt lemon or lime juice, 1pt water and as many pts of rye whiskey as required.
Inspired by the soda stream thread I am making some more and really amping up the Ginger to make a base for Ginger ale (just add soda water).
And High West Double Rye, should it come to that
Oh, who am I kidding, it always does.
My girlfriend got me this book, and it has recipes for charred cedar bitters and aromatic bitters. The charred cedar is intended to approximate a whiskey barrel aging process by getting food safe cedar sheets and charring them over an open flame. It smells great, but it still needs to steep for another week and a half. And I only set off the smoke alarm once.
Most bitters recipes tend to use bittering agents such as gentian, burdock, wormwood, etc. They’re tough to find in stores, so I had to special order most of them.
The aromatic bitters is a motley combination of orange peel, cherries, and a bunch of other spices, steeped in high proof bourbon.
My apple bitters finished up recently, and it turned out quite well. The only bittering agent it needed was cinchona bark, which I already had from a previous tonic syrup adventure.
The author recommends Mountain Rose Herbs and Dandelion Botanical. I’m on the east coast and the shipping for Mountain Rose was way more reasonable.
You might be able to get away with Burdock root as a substitute for gentian root, based on how they smell. You’ll probably have to special order gentian, but the MOM’s Organic Market in my town carries Burdock root. Also, you can check Hispanic grocery stores for cinchona bark. I’ve seen it in 0.25 oz packets with a yellow label “quina.” The same brand also sells Wormwood, but I’m still figuring out how to best use it.
That may be enough to get you started without having to buy a bunch of stuff online. IIRC, cinchona is the only exotic item you’ll need for the apple bitters.
I would recommend an Aeropress for filtering, if you don’t already have a French press or something similar. If you’re not ready to make that investment, you can get away with coffee filters, gravity, and a lot of patience.
I took my homemade tonic syrup, the precambrianmollusc syrup, cherry syrup, Apple bitters, mint bitters, and a variety of citrus fruits to a cocktail party last weekend, and they were a hit.
For porous flavorants that take a long time to steep, you can use a nitrous oxide siphon (like for making whipped cream) for rapid infusions. Works well for most herbs, charred wood…I’m not sure what else. I didn’t think fruits would work well but I made up some nice cucumber gin.
Just add the ingredients and liquid, charge, shake, vent. Maybe repeat, depending on taste.
I order it on Amazon. There might be some restrictions on buying cylinders, but I’ve never needed those outside of the lab. The chargers for the whipper are about $1 each.
To more directly answer your question, the only legal restrictions I’m aware of involve inhalation, including intent to use recreationally and sale for misuse. But I’m no expert on these matters.
It’s also available from restaurant supply shops.
Huh. I had no idea. Thanks. Perhaps I’ll try it sometime to make a rapid infusion. For now, I’ve already invested quite a lot, between high proof booze, bottles, jars, and herbs, I’m probably $200 in to this little hobby by now.
I take it back. I don’t recommend using burdock root for anything. It’s not on the FDA GRAS list and there are some pages in the FDA database that suggest that it’s currently classified as a potential poison or carcinogen.
This raises the other issue I have with making bitters: I want to be sure that I’m only using safe materials. A lot of the bittering agents tend to be available on health food sites, and I’m inherently distrustful of alternative medicine. I thought I had checked all of the stuff I ordered against the FDA GRAS list, but it looks like I wasn’t thorough enough.