Boker's Bitters by Adam Elmegirab

Founded by John G. Boker in 1828, Boker’s Bitters gained popularity in New York and around the World as the finest bitters of the Golden Age of mixed drinks. Boker’s Bitters were famously the preferred brand of Professor Jerry Thomas and featured throughout his book, ‘How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant’s Companion’, now recognised as the World’s first bartender’s guide.

Despite being unequalled when used in the refined drinks of the bar, the devastating effect of The Volstead Act, commonly referred to as Prohibition, closed the Boker’s company in the 1920s.

Referencing receipts dating back to 1853, these recreated bitters are compounded using the finest natural herbs and spices and are once again being used globally by bartenders in original libations and classics such as the Japanese Cocktail, Martinez, Manhattan, Crusta and Improved Cocktail

The botanicals (quassia bark, areca catechu, calamus root substitute, dried orange peel and cardamom) all bring something different to the mix with notes that are herbal, floral, sweet, bitter, spiced, citrus. In earlier batches I always found the cardamom was overpowering everything else, which amounted to a product that was a little unbalanced and lacked an edge.

The first few batches I made were constructed by macerating everything together in one container, it wasn't until I separated the botanicals into individual containers that I was able to make a difference to the final product as this enabled me to try each botanical daily and monitor what was happening.

This may not be the best method for other bitters recipes, but for Boker's it certainly is the case. The bitterness of the quassia bark and the strength of flavour that Cardamom imparts has to be taken into account, hence why I'll stand by this method. There's fewer ingredients in Boker's so everything has to be perfect otherwise it just doesn't work.

The recipes I used as my guide always stated to macerate everything for around 10 days but I find this flawed as different botanicals impart different levels of flavour at different times. Cardamom for one imparts a serious amount of flavour after only a few days so I found this maceration had to be filtered out first, with the rest a few days after.

Another important factor in the final product was the preparation of the botanicals before maceration. I read somewhere that freezing the dried orange peel made a huge difference to the taste and I wholeheartedly agree, the areca catechu and calamus root substitute had to be ground to a fine powder for full flavour release, I preferred the use of whole cardamom pods versus seeds (I plan on an experimental batch where I'll toast the cardamom), and the quassia bark had to be broken into smaller chippings*.

*No matter how adventurous you're feeling, don't chew on quassia bark. It's not big, it's not clever, and it's seriously... weird. It felt like my face was turning inside out! 

Once everything is filtered and combined they are coloured with mallow flowers and then diluted. Some recipes I came across suggested colouring the water with the mallow flowers and then diluting, but again I didn't like this process as the water didn't take on as much colour as I wanted and the flavour that mallow offers (even though it's mild, it still offers notes similar to herbs/tea) didn't come through as well compared to when the macerations were coloured.

I've yet to find a recipe which states how much mallow flowers to use, so I'd like to state that you require around 100-150g per litre.

After all this has taken place and the mallow is filtered out, I then add the final ingredient which brings everything together and adds the edge I was looking for. Few recipes of Boker's called for an element of sweetness which I found surprising as I really felt it would round everything off and accentuate what was already there.

For this sweet element I searched around for something that would offer a richness, spiciness, bitterness and sweetness. After trialling out a few different ideas I eventually settled on something which offers all of these.   :wink:  Once this ingredient is added it really brings everything together; on the nose, palate and finish. 

I'm still looking at ways to add even more depth as no matter how good something is it can always be improved or bettered. I'm going to age a small batch to see what this does, and there's also another ingredient or two that I want to throw into the mix.

The whole process of making bitters has me hooked now and I've so many questions regarding bitters that I want to try and find the answers too, not just about how they are made, but about the history and use of them. As some of you may know, I've already started the groundwork on another bitters recipe I've come across and hope to have the first batch completed in the next few weeks.