Anyone who is seriously into mixology is big into cocktail bitters and has probably made a couple of batches of their own. It’s so much fun to experiment with adding different flavors of bitters to different cocktails and seeing what lemon bitters does to a gin and tonic and finding out if different brands of lemon bitters effect the drink differently or how celery bitters work in a Martini with different gins or in a Bloody Mary. You can probably see the possibilities. I own over thirty different types of bitters with flavors ranging from recreations of defunct brands that were popular prior to prohibition to mole chocolate bitters and cherry bitters etc. Here are my five favorite bitters. These are the bottles that I’m certain that I can’t live without.

#1 – Angostura Bitters – It’s scary that the most popular brand of bitters in the world that have been the bartender’s standby bitters for decades and the most widely available cocktail bitters are now an on the endangered products list. I can’t find them anywhere in Manhattan and finding them available on the internet has become next to impossible due to a production shutdown I have two bottles that are nearly full (a bottle typically lasts me a year) so I can wait this thing out for a while but the idea of not being able to ever get another bottle of these bitters made in Trinidad is terrifying. It’s hard to say why they’re the best bitters but they work amazingly well in Manhattan’s, Old-Fashioned’s, as well as rum drinks, are very reasonably priced and have a wonderful spicy, richness to them with a nice cardamom finish. When I have an upset stomach I’ll usually mix some Angostura bitters with club soda and that seems to soothe it.

#2- Regan’s Orange Bitters No 6 - Produced by author, mixologist, cocktail historian etc Gary Regan to fill the need for traditional orange bitters for use  in cocktails like the traditional Martini, The Pegu Club or The Bijou etc these bitters are pretty easy to find and are outstanding. Nowadays every company that produces bitters makes an orange variety, hell even Angostura added the flavor (the only flavor other than aromatic bitters that they make) but when No. 6 hit the market there was nothing like it. Simply put, it’s the most spicy of the orange bitters available and has tons of cinnamon and clove flavors.

# 3 -The Bitter Truth’s Jerry Thomas Decanter Bitters – The two bartenders who run this company out of Germany don’t fuck around even a little bit. Besides producing multiple flavors of top flight bitters, they also make handcrafted liqueurs like sloe gin and crème de violette and produced a 24-year-old bottle of rye that clocked in close to 140 proof and sold out within weeks of its release. The bottom line is that they take bar tending and the art of mixology very seriously. Jerry Thomas took bar tending seriously as well and a lot of cocktail historians consider him to be “the godfather” of the cocktail, that is mixing a spirit with water, as well as a sweetener and a bitter. This bitters recipe is right out of “the professor’s” recipe book and is both very sweet and very bitter. It is excellent in cocktails made with brandy and whiskey

#4 – Dr Adam’s Boker’s Bitters – When these first dropped I emailed Adam like a crack fiend, requesting the bitters and he hit me off lovely (pause). I featured the bitters on a purchase of the week post here it’s been about four months since that post and I am every bit as much in love with these bitters as I was them. Dr. Adam’s next jump off is a dandelion and burdock bitters so as soon as I try those I’ll be sure to do a separate post about them as well.

#5 – Fee Brother’s Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters - Fee Brothers has making its brand of bitters, cordial syrups and cocktail mixes for well over 100 years. To make this particular variety Fee Brothers takes their Old Fashion Bitters (aromatic bitters) and ages them in freshly emptied oak barrels from Tennessee, the interior charred and soaked with whiskey. They make this special edition bitters once a year and when its gone it’s gone, until the next year that is. Each bottle does indeed have it’s year on it and the aging gives the bitters so much depth, they’re really able to stand up in an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan.