Boker's Bitters was a brand of bitters manufactured by the L. J. Funke Company of New York City. [1] The ingredient is specified in nearly every cocktail that called for bitters in Jerry Thomas' 1862 book, How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant's Companion. Among the ingredients were quassia, cardamom, and bitter orange peel.[ citation needed ]
The Boker's company was a leading brand of bitters until the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and eventually closed during the Prohibition era in the 1920s.
Johann Gottlieb Böker created the bitters in 1828. The Boker's company was a leading brand of bitters until the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and eventually closed during the Prohibition era in the 1920s. [2]
Until 2009, no samples of the bitters were known to exist, and as the recipe had never been published, recreating it seemed unlikely. That year, a man showed up at the London Bar Show with a small remaining sample, which was then combined with extensive research (including interviewing descendants of John Boker), to recreate a facsimile of the bitters. [3] [4] Consequentially, as a result of the collaborative effort of beverage aficionados, the likely recipe began circulating online, and several well-established, modern bitters brands began offering their own renditions of the Boker's recipe — whether in perpetuity or as a one-off. Those brands include Philadelphia distillers, Dr. Adam Elmegirab, and The Bitter Truth.
A cocktail is a mixed drink, usually alcoholic. Most commonly, a cocktail is a combination of one or more spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as juices, flavored syrups, tonic water, shrubs, and bitters. Cocktails vary widely across regions of the world, and many websites publish both original recipes and their own interpretations of older and more famous cocktails.
A Manhattan is a cocktail made with whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters. While rye is the traditional whiskey of choice, other commonly used whiskies include Canadian whisky, bourbon, blended whiskey, and Tennessee whiskey. The cocktail is usually stirred with ice then strained into a chilled cocktail glass and garnished traditionally with a maraschino cherry. A Manhattan may also be served on the rocks in a lowball glass.
The old fashioned is a cocktail made by muddling sugar with bitters and water, adding whiskey or sometimes brandy, and garnishing with an orange slice or zest and a cocktail cherry. It is traditionally served with ice in an old fashioned glass.
The Tom Collins is a Collins cocktail made from gin, lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water. This "gin and sparkling lemonade" drink is typically served in a Collins glass over ice with a cherry garnish. A non-alcoholic "Collins mix" mixer is produced, enjoyed by some as a soft drink.
The Long Island iced tea, or Long Island ice tea, is an IBA official cocktail, typically made with vodka, tequila, light rum, triple sec, gin, and a splash of cola. Despite its name, the cocktail does not typically contain iced tea, but is named for having the same amber hue as iced tea.
The Sazerac is a local variation of a cognac or whiskey cocktail originally from New Orleans, named for the Sazerac de Forge et Fils brand of cognac brandy that served as its original main ingredient. The drink is most traditionally a combination of cognac or rye whiskey, absinthe, Peychaud's Bitters, and sugar, although bourbon whiskey is sometimes substituted for the rye and Herbsaint is sometimes substituted for the absinthe. Some claim it is the oldest known American cocktail, with origins in antebellum New Orleans, although drink historian David Wondrich is among those who dispute this, and American instances of published usage of the word cocktail to describe a mixture of spirits, bitters, and sugar can be traced to the dawn of the 19th century.
A bitters is traditionally an alcoholic preparation flavored with botanical matter for a bitter or bittersweet flavor. Originally, numerous longstanding brands of bitters were developed as patent medicines, but now are sold as digestifs, sometimes with herbal properties, and as cocktail flavorings.
The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive and/or a lemon twist. Over the years, the martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. A common variation, the vodka martini, uses vodka instead of gin for the cocktail's base spirit.
The Singapore sling is a gin-based sling cocktail from Singapore. This long drink was reputed to have been developed in 1915 by Ngiam Tong Boon, a bartender at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel, Singapore. It was initially called the gin sling.
The negroni is a cocktail, made of equal parts gin, vermouth rosso, and Campari, generally served on the rocks, and commonly garnished with an orange slice or orange peel. It is considered an apéritif.
A sour is a traditional family of mixed drinks. Sours belong to one of the old families of original cocktails and are described by Jerry Thomas in his 1862 book How to Mix Drinks.
Angostura bitters is a concentrated bitters based on gentian, herbs, and spices, produced by House of Angostura in Trinidad and Tobago. It is typically used for flavouring beverages, or less often, food. The bitters were first produced in the town of Angostura, hence the name, but do not contain angostura bark. The bottle is recognisable by its distinctive oversized label and yellow cap. Angostura is Spanish for "narrowing", the town of Angostura having been at the first narrowing of the Orinoco River.
The Gibson is a mixed drink made with gin and dry vermouth, and often garnished with a pickled onion. In its modern incarnation, it is considered a cousin of the ubiquitous martini, distinguished mostly by garnishing with an onion instead of an olive. But the earliest recipes for a Gibson – including the first known recipe published in 1908 by Sir David Austin – are differentiated more by how they treat the addition of bitters.
Jeremiah P. Thomas was an American bartender who owned and operated saloons in New York City. Because of his pioneering work in popularizing cocktails across the United States as well, he is considered "the father of American mixology". In addition to writing the seminal work on cocktails, Bar-Tender's Guide, Thomas displayed creativity and showmanship while preparing drinks and established the image of the bartender as a creative professional. As such, he was often nicknamed "Professor" Jerry Thomas.
The corpse reviver family of named cocktails are sometimes drunk as alcoholic hangover tongue-in-cheek "cures", of potency or characteristics to be able to revive even a dead person. Some corpse reviver cocktail recipes have been lost to time, but several variations commonly thought to be tied to the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel remain, especially those espoused by Harry Craddock that originally date back to at least 1930 and are still being made. Many "reviver" variations exist and the word is sometimes used as a generic moniker for any morning-after cocktail, also known as a "hair of the dog".
The Blackthorn is an Irish whiskey or sloe gin based cocktail. Both versions emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The Martinez is a classic cocktail that is widely regarded as the direct precursor to the Martini. It serves as the basis for many modern cocktails, and several different versions of the original exist. These are generally distinguished by the accompaniment of either Maraschino or Curacao, as well as differences in gin or bitters.
A Green Swizzle is an alcohol-containing cocktail of the sour family. It was popular in Trinidad at the beginning of the 20th century but got lost during the course of the Second World War. Today's recipes usually constitute an often distinct divergence from the original.