Make Your Own Bitters at Home

Bitters are a key ingredient in many cocktails, including the Old Fashioned and the Sazerac, among others. While it's great to have popular brands like Angostura 🍊 or Peychaud's on hand, it's very easy to make your own bitters at home , according to your own recipe.

Homemade bitters are easy to make, but allow about 25 days for them to be ready. The joy of having your own bitters is well worth the wait. The best part is that you can customize your recipe even after you've made it! We explain everything in this article.

So we'll start by explaining how to create your own bitters from the ingredients of your choice, and then at the end we'll give you some delicious ingredient combinations 😁.

Ideas for herbs and spices to add to your bitters

The flavorings and aromatic agents you use in your recipe can be just about any herb, spice, flower, fruit, or nut. Let your imagination run wild! Whenever possible, use organic ingredients, especially when it comes to fruit peels. Here are a few examples:

• Spices 🌶️ - chili, anise, cumin, cardamom, celery seeds, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, fennel, ginger, juniper berries, nutmeg, peppercorns, star anise.
• Herbs and flowers 🌿 - chamomile, hibiscus, hops, lavender, lemongrass, mint, rose, rosemary, sage, thyme.
• Fruits 🍒 - dried citrus peels (lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit), dried fruits (apples, cherries, figs, raisins, apricots)
• Nuts 🌰 - roasted almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nuts, etc.
• Beans 🍫 - cocoa beans, coffee beans, vanilla pods

What you need to make your own bitters

• Vodka or the most neutral brandy possible (50° or higher)
• The herbs of your choice
• A pestle
• Jars/bottles that seal well (airtight, typically with a gasket)
• Something to label the jars with (pieces of paper with tape will do)
• Sugar syrup (agave syrup if you can't find sugar syrup)

Take your aromatic ingredients separately and crush them with a pestle. If they are dry ingredients, the important thing is to make them as finely ground as possible. If it's a fresh ingredient ❄️, then we'll want to extract its juice. So, press it with a pestle directly into the jar where you'll infuse it.

If you're lacking equipment to prepare your cocktails, you've come to the right place! Our shop offers cocktail kits, where you'll find everything you need to make your favorite cocktails.

Place each crushed ingredient in a separate jar (an airtight bottle works too). Then pour the alcohol over the herbs in each jar , enough to cover them completely and leave an extra 1 or 2 cm of alcohol on top. Remember to label each container so you can easily identify which herb is in which jar.

Note: It is important to use an alcohol of 50% ABV or higher if you want to keep your bitters for 1 to 18 months . If you use vodka at 40 % ABV , your bitters will only keep for a maximum of 6 months.

Then close the jars and shake them vigorously. You can now let them rest for 1 to 3 weeks. While they are infusing, shake the jars vigorously once a day . After a week, you can test the smell to see if the alcohol has infused enough ⏱️. Put a few drops of your mixture on one of your hands, rub your hands together, and smell the fragrance . If you find the scent strong enough, you can move on to the next step. If you prefer to let it infuse further, do so and come back to smell it a few days later. Finally, if you don't have a very good sense of smell, you can dilute a few drops in a little water and see if the taste is fragrant.

When you decide your alcohol has infused enough, strain it through a coffee filter. This will ensure the resulting liquid is free of lumps and won't continue infusing, potentially altering the flavor.

Now that you have your infused liqueurs without any lumps, you can create your bitters! Pour a little from each jar into another container, measuring the amount you're using. This mixture will be your bitters, and the advantage is that you can test different combinations of ingredients. And above all, you can vary the amount of each ingredient to find your favorite bitters 😍.

The final step is to add sugar syrup to your bitters to perfect the flavor. Experiment to find the right proportion for you; we recommend starting with 1/4 sugar syrup. For example, if you have 10 cl of bitters, add 2.5 cl of sugar syrup. If it's not sweet enough, add more syrup until you reach the perfect balance .

And there you have it! You have your own homemade bitters. You even have several homemade bitters at your disposal, so it's up to you to create different delicious recipes!

Homemade Bitters Recipes

If you prefer to prepare a recipe that works directly without having to test different proportions, we will offer you several!

Since these blends have already been tested, you can put everything directly into the same jar (convenient, isn't it?) . However, putting each ingredient in a separate jar will allow you to choose the perfect proportions for your taste.

Bitter House: cardamom and orange

• 3 teaspoons of dried orange peel (finely chopped)
• 3 teaspoons of cardamom
• 3 teaspoons of coriander
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cumin

This aromatic blend offers a very interesting fragrance centered on orange, enhanced by the accompanying spices. 🍊

Bitter House: lavender

• 6 and 1/2 teaspoons of lavender
• 3 teaspoons of orange peel
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon of ginger

This exquisite bitter adds a distinctive floral aroma to your cocktails. Perfect with fruity cocktails, but also with simpler cocktails like the Dry Martini.

Bitter Maison: coffee

• 3 and 1/2 teaspoons of coffee beans (ground into a powder)
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon of absinthe
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of orange peel

For coffee lovers, this bitter is simply excellent. ☕

Remember to mix in sugar syrup at the end, for each recipe.

You now have the knowledge to create any bitters you can imagine! We recommend starting with one of the three recipes we offer and infusing it with a few other spices you enjoy. This way, you can personalize your chosen recipe and create your own without any risk!