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Bitters, Hop

A herbal bitter made by macerating herbs and sugar in water, then infusing, fermenting with yeast, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Bitters, Hop

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Macerate the herbs and sugar in distilled water for one day.

  2. Transfer to a percolator and collect 1 pint of percolate, adding more menstruum if necessary.

  3. In a covered vessel, combine the herbs and sugars with boiling water and infuse for one hour.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture and let it cool to 130°F (54°C).

  2. Add the yeast and essence, then allow to stand for six hours.

  3. Strain again and bottle the bitters.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Dandelion + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Dandelion + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Orange + spirittop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gentian
Supplies the intense bitter taste that defines the finished bitters.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma to the infusion.
German yeast
Acts on the sugars during the standing period, changing the flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitter herbs.
Rectified spirit
Extracts flavour compounds from the herbs and helps preserve the bitters.

The step that matters

Cool to 130°F before adding the yeast. Yeast is damaged by high heat, so adding it to liquid that is still too hot can kill it and stop it from working during the standing period. Cooling first lets the yeast stay active.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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