Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters & What are bitters?
Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters Review
So what are bitters? Why do you use them in drinks?
Bitters are a traditionally alcoholic spirit, often in small bottles (usually 4-6oz, but sometimes you might see a 16oz) infused with botanicals, spices, flowers, fruits or other ingredients, to achieve a bitter or bittersweet flavor. But why would you want to add something bitter to your drink? Well, your tongue can taste a multitude of flavor components, sweet, sour, spicy, salty, but also bitter. You're only adding a couple drops or dashes of bitters to a drink, and what that does is not "make your drink bitter" it adds a new dimension to a drink. For example, an old fashioned is just whiskey, and sugar, and bitters. If you remove the bitters, then all you've done is sweetened your whiskey. But with the bitters, you not only taste the qualities of your whiskey, but it stretches parts of the flavor palate, expands on them. It makes it so that your sip can "evolve" (the flavors you detect change as you drink it, and as it sits in your mouth). Suddenly you've taken sweet whiskey and really opened it up, so that each sip almost makes you ponder what you're tasting.
Ok, but why taste bitters by itself? Well, most people wouldn't. Especially if you're just going to go to a bar and order a drink there, it's really not important. But for someone like me, who wants to have a home bar, and mix drinks for myself, my family, my friends, knowing every ingredient that I'm putting in a drink, allows me to know what flavors might work together well. Some people would say that I should even taste my syrups individually.
Ok, but why taste bitters by itself? Well, most people wouldn't. Especially if you're just going to go to a bar and order a drink there, it's really not important. But for someone like me, who wants to have a home bar, and mix drinks for myself, my family, my friends, knowing every ingredient that I'm putting in a drink, allows me to know what flavors might work together well. Some people would say that I should even taste my syrups individually.
However, there is a subset of people who drink bitters, especially Angostura Aromatic Bitters by themselves. Specifically at "Nelsen's Hall and Bitters Club" on Washington Island on the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan. The story goes that Tom Nelsen, a Danish immigrant opened the bar in 1899, but when prohibition rolled around from 1920 to 1933, he refused to shut the doors on the business he'd worked so hard to open. So, he applied for and was granted a pharmaceutical license to serve a "Stomach tonic for medicinal purposes". Since Angostura bitters is 90 proof, it's about as strong as a base spirit, and Tom started serving shots of bitters to his customers, which allowed him to stay open during prohibition. Rumors claim that Tom himself drank 16 shots of bitters a day, and he lived to be 90 years old.
Because Tom was willing to serve, and his customers willing to drink bitters on their own. Nelsen's hall is the longest continuously operating Tavern in the state of Wisconsin. There's a legend that claims that at one point authorities tried to shut down Nelsen's hall, but after trying a shot of bitters himself, the judge proclaimed that "anyone who willingly drinks a glass of this must have something wrong with them". However I was personally unable to find a reliable source for that information. Now if you venture to Nelsen's hall and take a shot of bitters yourself, they give you a membership card to the "Bitters club" where the bartender rubs their thumb in the remaining bitters in your glass and stamps the card himself, to honor the tradition of drinking bitters.
If you have any recommendations for what I should try next, or how I could improve my content, please let me know.
If you have any recommendations for what I should try next, or how I could improve my content, please let me know.
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