Problem was I had no idea how to even get started.. luckily in this world connected by the "information super highway" I quickly found numerous telling me how/what/how long and since good things come in 1000s I decided to create one more.. welcome to my one more
Here are a few of the websites I read before doing this
http://drinkdogma.com/how-to-make-your-own-bitters-for-cocktails/
http://spiritsandcocktails.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/how-to-make-bitters/
From skimming all these pages here is what I gathered:
- Use high proof alcohol: Alcohol is a great extractor of flavor so the higher the proof the better the effect. Also keeping it high proof will lengthen its shelf life.. for my first round I thought I would go for broke and use Everclear - at 190 proof it is about as high as you can get without getting into some chemistry I don't understand.
- It takes awhile: I for one am for instant gratification - but in this case I was left to wait.. to really extract the flavor of some things you probably need weeks. (Luckily I had store bought bitters to tide me over)
- A good idea is to make separate batches with just a single flavor and then blend those together to get different combinations (I actually don't know if this is better or worse than making everything together but having more options appealed to me so that is how I am doing it)
- Anything goes: The more websites I read the more I realized "Bitters" is a very broad category and half the fun is trying to come up with different things to throw in the mix and see how it will work out. Technically "bitters" should contain some bittering agent.. I found all the suggestions on the various webpages fairly hard to come by - so my first batch of flavors didn't include any of those.. so from now on I am going to refer to all of my different "flavor additives" as bitters.. purists go ahead and hate me - I can deal.
- With some many possibilities this might be dangerous for my time.
Equipment:
- Bottles:
- For my batches of single flavors I found these bottles which I thought would do the job and looked halfway cool (and eligible for Amazon Prime which really sealed the deal)
- I still wanted something more "bitters bottle" looking with a dropper but I really had a hard time finding something that would fit the bill - luckily after hours of searching I stumbled upon this site SKS Bottle - I ended up buying the Woozy bottles with the orifice reducer - highly recommend - bottles work great and the arrived on my doorstop 2 days after my order.
- Mason Jars - After making the mistake of putting large pieces of lemon peel in the narrow necked bottles I realized that Mason jars or something with a larger opening might be more appropriate for the infusion period.. lesson learned.
- Ingredients:
- Alcohol - while I chose Everclear you could do this with other spirits (vodka, whiskey, etc) but try to get as high proof as you can.
- Flavors: I started with just things I had around the house for my first batch - I will report back with good locations to buy the harder to find herbs traditionally found in bitters once I figure them out
- Misc:
- You will want to have some funnels, bowls, and coffee filters and if you make the same mistake I did something long and sharp to help you get all the lemon peels out of the narrow necked bottles
Technique/Tips/Tricks:
- Shake the bottles every day while the flavors are infusing: To tell you the truth i have no idea if this is necessary but every website seemed to say it and I assume they have no reason to lie
- After you are done infusing use a coffee filter to get out all the solids - At first I tried to just put it in the funnel but that took forever.. I had much better luck using a wire mesh strainer (see picture)
Good Luck!
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