Did you know that the taste of something bitter revives flavor in certain foods and drinks? We normally think of them in alcoholic drinks, be they alcoholic or non-alcoholic. Bitters also revive our taste buds, improving digestion and delivering potent medicine from herbs, flowers, barks and seeds.
DIY Bitters: Reviving the Forgotten Flavor is a wonderful introduction to making and using bitters, those “forgotten” but ubiquitous purveyors of sophistication in drinks, food and medicine. I say “wonderful” because I actually thrive on bitter tastes for drinks (not necessarily alcoholic), and think they offer a purity that’s medicinal because they act on our liver, a primary detox center in the body.
DIY Bitters: Reviving the Forgotten Flavor is a book for Cocktail Enthusiasts and Herbalists. While DIY Bitters offers guidance for Cocktail Enthusiasts—purveyors of taste and pleasure, there’s more. It also offers guidance for herbalists—those who make medicinal tinctures and remedies. These two groups of bitters fans make a not-so unusual combination, especially because they seek to soften the rough edges of life. Each plays an ancient role in their craft that utilizes a bitter revival to advantage.
DIY Bitters: Reviving the Forgotten Flavor contains a history of bitters use. In the herbal medicine of the ages, an alchemy of benefits was sought to create medicines that travelled well and had particular healing powers due to their concentrated substances. Herbs were steeped in alcohol (or water) for a period of time, combined and judiciously added to a liquor or syrup. These alchemies, or herbal preparations became known by name as miraculous healing formulas. They were preserved as recipes that over hundreds of years have been used to overturn poisoning during plagues, to maintain healthful vigor, and in modern times to enliven alcoholic drinks.
These days, herbalists select a strength of vodka as the alcohol for tincturing or preparing the herbs. DIY Bitters provides notes on the chemistry, instruction, herbal description and detailed recipes for making tinctures and bitters; there are recipes for salads, sweets, teas, and cocktails as well.
But what, exactly, are bitters? If the desire to know has you picking up this book and leafing through its very comely pages, you’ll find that DIY Bitters is inviting. It illustrates a laid-back, rustic style that has you at once relaxed with the idea that knowing a little chemistry won’t keep you from enjoying an occasionally bitter-spiked drink, pastille, salad, chutney, or after-dinner mint.
Masé doesn’t pose the question “what are bitters?” (and answer it) in the usual way. Because he’s a storyteller, he elicits from you, the reader, a response that has you enthralled with an idea, even one that’s slightly objectionable at first! Who, me, drinking bitters, and with gusto!? Yes, actually. Me, too. And to our health, daily.
For starters, we need bitters to balance the sweets and the vague, sort of grain-y tastes masking all that sugar (read uber-carbohydrate) activity most food choices give us.
More than carbohydrates and their chemical breakdown into sugars, we need bitters to increase the health of liver processes. Two of my favorite bitters are likely yours as well: coffee and dark chocolate.
And what, exactly, do bitters do for us?
Masé quotes a contemporary herbalist, Jim McDonald, who says that “bitterness makes us feel satiated”. (!) That’s right, with bitter notes in food and drink, our digestive apparatus receives signals to get to work breaking down the food we eat and utilizing the drinks we take in the most efficacious, healthful manner.
In short bitters reinforce positive bodily processes and promote health and well-being. Masé notes the benefits of bitters being “weight control, liver function, and reduced inflammation”; a kind of superfluity of good is what bitters perform in the body.
Why formulas for bitters?
For a long time, I thought of herbs and their interaction in my body as a basic one-to-one relationship, not unlike the mainstream concept of taking a medicine for a pain or condition. If I took Echinacea by itself, my cold or flu went away. If I took Chamomile tea, I would relax. If I took Senna pod tea… Mostly I relied on these “simples”, or single remedies because I thought a strong action was called for.
However, more recently I’ve adopted an idea from Ron Teeguarden who says (and authors Masé and King seem to agree) that tonic herbs are foods. If that’s the case, then you’d want to enjoy your herbs, not ignore them. See more on Chinese Tonics, here.
If you’re looking for sophistication and palatability, formulas will deliver. Formulas created for bitter (tonic) herbs actually encourage you to enjoy the experience of ingesting them.
We’re not just throwing back a bitter substance ‘cause it’s good for us, but to enliven our palate and convince our digestive juices that something really exciting is available. Take a leaf from DIY Bitters formulas which have been curated to heighten taste, leave a pleasant mouthfeel and allow the flavor to contribute to our sense of smell, a known aspect of the pleasure of eating and drinking.
Tinctures of individual herbs form the signature flavor to which the authors here add 2-3 supporting herbal tinctures and raw honey. That’s it! So, you see it’s not so bad because the bitter herb flavor is adjusted and balanced by the company it keeps with other herbs in the formula, plus raw honey or even vanilla in some cases.
Some examples: you‘ll make tinctures using dried herbs from an herb shop (or fresh, from your garden) and the perquisite strength of vodka. Why not try tinctures of Green Tea, Coffee or Cacao and then use those tinctures in recipes to concoct your bitters formulas? The final product, like “Cacao Bitters”, is similar to an ancient recipe containing allspice, vanilla and cayenne with honey. Delicious! Or “Coffee Bitters” which benefit from spices plus Cacao Bitters. The authors provide recipes for such classics as “Angostura Bitters”, “Amaretto Bitters”, “Rhubarb Bitters”, and tonic syrups, and “Seasonal Bitters” as well.
Bitters for Overall Betterment
Assuming that most readers are more enamored of sweet tastes or for whatever reason are not sure at all about trying bitters, DIY Bitters offers ways to culture herbs for tonic preparations.
Focused on well-being and vigor, authors Masé and King provide description, instruction, and aspects of lifestyle readers can relate to. The healthful, bitter substances they employ are alcoholic enhancers, and indeed many people’s experience with the use of bitters. Yet bitters also make stand-alone concoctions that add sparkle to almost any drink. Masé and King are master formulators and have devised recipes for the discriminating, if slightly timid, bitter taste testers.
Read more about bitters at Urban Moonshine.
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