Don’t Be Bitter

The guys over at A Dash of Bitters are having a contest to give away a new and rare bottle of bitters, so I decided to play along. "Rare" as in only 100 bottles in the US. If you saw my previous post about bitters you know I like them, and I have to admit I can obsess about completing collections when it comes to stuff like this. In fact, since that post I added both Fee's Aztec Chocolate Bitters and Amargo Chuncho Peruvian Bitters from Cocktail Kingdom to my collection. Anyway, the contest is simple, I just have to write up this post and describe some cocktail collection or experience I'm jealous of. Easy, I'm jealous of all the people who posted at Kaiser Penguin who have bitter's I can't get my hands on because there were either homemade and a gift like Trader Tiki's Falernum Bitters (man those sound good), or because they were a limited edition from years past or never available by retail like several Bitterman's products. So that's that. Maybe I'll stumble across a source sometime. I did look into making my own, but at this point it seems way too involved even for me. As in procuring a barrel to age them in for 6 months after precisely mixing at least several different infusions and tinctures of various esoteric ingredients., you know, eye of newt and toe of frog and whatnot. (I do plan to make my own tonic next week though, I'll post the results of that endeavor after I see how it turns out.)