Bittermens Buckspice Gingersnap Bitters

About

Small batch bitters are making their mark on the cocktail scene. In cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco, cocktail enthusiasts and bartenders are rediscovering long lost recipes and coming up with new signature flavors which help create the palate of the New American Cocktail. While living in San Francisco in early 2007, Avery and Janet Glasser used high proof spirit and a variety of herbs, peels and spices to create an extract of a traditional Mexican cooking sauce. This extract became the prototype recipe for the Xocolatl Mole Bitters. The summer of 2010 marked a dramatic rebirth for Bittermens: winding down previous licensing agreements, striking new partnerships, developing new products and most importantly, leasing a commercial kitchen. All Bittermens products are now being made by hand at our Brooklyn facility using primarily organic ingredients. Bittermens also consults with bars and restaurants looking to develop signature in-house formulations.

We love gingerbread. Well, to be specific, we love the the sort of ginger cookies that we used to get at the Christmas markets in cities throughout Germany and Northern Europe. In Norway, these ginger cookies were called pepperkaker… or pepper cakes. Of course, nothing can beat having access to fresh ginger juice when you’re making a cocktail – but it isn’t something that most people have laying around their kitchen, and if you do make ginger juice, it starts to lose its flavor almost immediately. By using a combination of dried gingers and alcohol, we’ve been able to create a shelf-stable ginger bitter that can bring that bite to warming winter cocktails – especially those made with rum and bourbon – yet also work beautifully in classic bucks and mules. In fact, 10 drops in a Moscow Mule turns it into something special. Back in 2011, we added these bitters into our experimental series as the Peppercake Bitters, but stopped making them a couple of years later. We’ve tweaked the bitters to make them a little gingersnappier, and are bringing them back as our Bittermens Buckspice Gingersnap Bitters.