Message 15973 of 20656 in Recipe Exchange

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> Hi' Everybody!
> 
> I have been searching for bitter recipies on the net without any 
> luck. I wanted to find a allround recipe you could adjust for any 
> purpose desired. Any outthere who has expirience with the creation of 
> own bitters?

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Gary's bitters recipe has its antecedents in a Charles Baker recipe:

"Dried orange peel, 1/2 lb, chopped fine. Burnt sugar, about 4 tbsp. Good 
grain alcohol, 4 cups; cologne spirits is best if possible. Cardamom, caraway 
and coriander seeds 1/2 drachm each. These last come from the corner drug 
store.
First, chop the orange peel very fine, add herb seeds and pour on alcohol, 
then stand in a sealed jar for 15 days, agitating every day. Pour off spirits 
through a cloth, and seal again. Take the seeds and peel, put them in a 
saucepan, crushing with a wooden muddler. Cover them with boiling water, 
simmer 5 minutes; put in covered jar for 2 days, then strain this off and add 
to the spirits. Put in burnt sugar for colour. Filter again, let stand until 
it settles perfectly clear, then bottle for use--being careful not to agitate 
the slight precipitation or sediment during this final operation."

What's missing in this recipe is some sort of bittering agent, as is routine 
in most bitters recipes, things like gentian, quassia or chinchona. Even the 
Stirrings "Blood Orange bitters" uses some gentian, though no alcohol and a 
lot of sugar. And the Fee Bros orange bitters has a nice clean bitter edginess 
to it.

Which is not to say that Baker's recipe is unique in its "rootless-ness". The 
Wehman Bros Bartender's Guide of 1912 includes an orange bitters recipe 
similar to Bakers:

"One and one-half pounds freshly dried orange peel
One and one-half ounces of coriander seeds
One and one-half drachms of caraway seeds
One and one-half drachms of cardamom seeds
Three ounces of burned sugar
Seven pints of syrup
Water sufficient to make up two gallons
Steep the seeds and peel in the spirit for fourteen or twenty days, when it 
must be drained off and replaced by water; which after two days drain off and 
replace by a second quantity of water. Let the three tinctures thus obtained 
be mixed-together, and first the coloring and then the syrup be added. This, 
if allowed to remain a short time undisturbed, will become bright; or if 
wanted for immediate use, may be filtered through fine line."

Dicks Enclyclopedia of Practical Recipes and Processes has several Bitter's 
recipes, and if memory serves, another rootless orange bitters. The Scientific 
American Cyclopedia of Receipts, Notes and Queries also has a rootless orange 
bitters recipe which is nearly word-for-word what appears in the Schulz 
section of Jerry Thomas' 1862:

"6 lbs of orange peel, macerate them for 24 hours with 1 gallon of water, cut 
the yellow part of the peel from off the white, and chop it fine; macerate 
with 4 3/4 gallons of alcohol, 95 percent, for two weeks, or displace....then 
add a syrup made of 4 1/4 gallons of water and 16 lbs sugar.
Filter"

If you're aiming for a more herby and rooty concoction, there are several 
bitters recipes in "A Treatise on the Manufacture, Imitation and Reduction of 
Foreign Wines, Brandies, Gins, Rum &c, and all Kinds of Domestic Liquors Based 
Upon the French System". While none of the bitters are classified as "orange", 
"aromatic" and the like, they are organized by base liquor and many have a 
relatively high orange component. They might be a pretty good template or 
simply food for thought. Like this little bit of solipsism from the chapter's 
preface: "The Swiss peasant cheers himself amid the frigid solitude of his 
glaciers, with a spirit distilled from gentian, the extreme bitterness of 
which is relished with a glee that is quite unintelligible to a more 
cultivated taste."
(So now I'm a peasant. Great, just great.)

Here's a couple that seem sufficiently "orange-y"

No. 1
8 ounces dried orange-peel
8 ounces bruised gentian root
6 ounces unground cinnamon
8 ounces bruised cochineal
2 drachms ginger root
2 gallons proof-spirits
1 1/2 gallons water
1 pound loaf sugar
Digest for fourteen days; decant the clear liquor, and filter if required.

No. 5
2 ounces bruised gentian
2 ounces dried orange peel
1 ounce cassia bark
1 pound loaf sugar
2 gallons brandy
Digest for twelve days, agitating frequently; filter through paper, then add 
the sugar

No. 6
1/4 pound wild-cherry bark
1/4 pound orange peel
1/4 pound bruised gentian
1 ounce canella bark
1 ounce Virginia snake-root
2 ounces red sanders
4 gallons of brandy
Digest fourteen days, agitating frequently; then draw off the clear liquor, 
adding 2 pounds loaf sugar

No. 10
1/8 pound bruised gentian
1/8 pound orange peel
1/8 pound wild cherry bark
1/8 pound calamus
1/8 pound chamomile blossoms
1/8 pound bruised cardamom seed
1/4 pound red sanders
1 ounce canella bark
1/8 pound Virginia snake root
1/4 pound columbo root, bruised
5 gallons spirits
Digest fourteen days, frequently shaking; decant the clear liquor, add 2 
pounds loaf sugar

A couple of things to keep in mind: substituting dried or powdered forms of 
roots etc can be tricky and should be avoided if possible. The powdered forms 
can vary widely in strength and can deteriorate over time, as well as clouding 
up the works. Also, check with someone who knows about some of these roots. 
These recipes are mid-19th century and it may turn out that in the intervening 
150 years some toxic effects may have been identified. The government thinks 
that some forms of sassafrass are poisonous, for instance, and the jury is 
still out on snakeroot.

myers

Brilliant work, JM. One thing though: the jury has actually returned a verdict 
on all forms of Snakeroot. The FDA has a severe caution alert out on it. It 
causes renal failure. I actually contacted the lead scientist in the study 
that nailed this down. I told him I wanted to put it in bitters, just a 
little, and bitters were used in mere drops, so how much harm could there be? 
He said for his money....not even one drop.

Makes you wonder how many 19 century commercially-bottled bitters contained it.

--Doc.

DrCocktail: "Brilliant work, JM. One thing though: the jury has actually 
returned a verdict on all forms of Snakeroot. The FDA has a severe caution 
alert out on it. It causes renal failure. I actually contacted the lead 
scientist in the study that nailed this down. I told him I wanted to put it in 
bitters, just a little, and bitters were used in mere drops, so how much harm 
could there be? He said for his money....not even one drop."

Well, I guess I'll give up on my quest to find some!

Forms of Snakeroot were used for centuries as an aid in childbirth. I guess 
there's another reason for higher mortality of women after childbirth in 
centuries past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristolochia

Yet still listed on the Generally Recognized As Safe list.

Canadian Snakeroot Oil is still GRAS and Virginia snakeroot is GRAS for 
"alcoholic beverage" uses. The offending compound seems to be aristolochic 
acid and the FDA's freak-out seems to date to 2001 around (mostly European) 
cases where the patients had been gobbling a weight loss supplement that had 
been mis-concocted.

As far as how many brands contained it? I'm guessing a bunch and it just 
occured to me: is this part of the etymology of "Snake Oil"?
A quick scorecard for how many bitters recipes in the above cited texts that 
contain snakeroot:

3 in A Treatise,
2 in Jerry Thomas '62 (1 in Schulz , 1 in Thomas)
3 in Dick's (1 recipe contains both Canadian and Virginian)
1 in Sci Am (" " " ")

More to the point: How many STILL contain snakeroot? The recipes in Dick's and 
Sci Am that contain both flavors of snakeroot are labeled "Angostura bitters", 
and while I know they're so named because of angostura bark, rather than an 
attempt at mimicing the Siebert recipe, would it surprise us to find out that 
it's a component in the commercial brand? Or Fernet Branca, for that matter?

myers

Given that warning, I can't believe ANY brands still include it. Which brings 
up the better question: How different do bitters taste now than in the 19th 
century? Or the early 20th century?

I also read the various disputes and even spoke to an "expert" in natural 
herbal remedies who pish poshed the study.

After actually taling to the scientist though, I sadly abandoned that the 
snakeroot-in-bitters avenue of research.

This guy had no axe to grind...I'd have been a fool to ignore his heartfelt 
advice.

--Doc.

While I'm no friend of alternative medicine, I am a pish-posher from way back 
so I find myself in a quandry.
But it gets great gas mileage....

myers

here are a whole bunch of different plants called "snakeroot".

Canadian Snakeroot or Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) is generally considered 
edible and sometimes used as substitute for regular ginger. Another one I've 
seen in some bitters recipes is Black Snakeroot or Black Cohosh (Actaea 
racemosa) and is also used in some herbal medicine. Echinaceae or Coneflower 
is even sometimes called Missouri Snakeroot.

Of these, only Canadian Snakeroot is even remotely related to Virginia 
Snakeroot (Aristolochia serpentaria).

Then there's White Snakeroot (Eupatorium rugosum), which is very poisonous.

How do you know when your snakeroot vendor is a snake oil salesman? Or if the 
recipe just sez "snakeroot", which do you use?

~Erik

That's true.

Only those of the Serpentaria/Aristolochia classification are "real" (bad) 
snakeroot. They are:
Virginia Snakeroot (Aristolochia Serpentaria)
Canada Snakeroot
(Asarum Canadense, and also Asarum Virginicum; but note the Natural Order of 
each: Aristolochiaceae. This one is also part of the FDA alert)
and Texas Snakeroot (Aristolochia Reticulata)

And, as you say, there are many other plants so-named but not of the same 
Order.

Here are the basic alert info and links to the FDA alert:
The U.S. Government has issued a warning on supplements containing poisonous 
plant compounds called aristolochic acids which are powerful carcinogenic and 
kidney toxin.  The toxin may be in some products sold in the U.S. Large doses 
will cause immediate damage.  Small doses will cause damage but may not be 
detected until the damage is all ready done.  They can also cause cancer of 
the lung, bladder and stomach. There are 14 different aristolochic acids in 
Chinese and Japanese herbs as well as Dutchman's pipe, Clematis, Virginia 
snakeroot, Wild ginger, Indian ginger, Canada snakeroot, False coltsfoot, 
Colic root, Heart snakeroot, Vermont snakeroot, Southern snakeroot.

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-bot2.html
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-bot.html

In formularies, it was almost always Virginia Snakeroot that was used in 
bitters. It was so ubiquitous they often just wrote "snakeroot". I spent weeks 
researching the stuff.

--Doc.

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