In 1806, a newspaper in upstate New York published the first documented definition of a cocktail: spirits, sugar, water, and bitters. Bitters were there at the beginning. Most bars today have exactly one bottle.
This episode traces the history of bitters from ancient medicinal tonics through the 1806 cocktail definition, through a German military surgeon named Johann Siegert who crossed the Atlantic to join Simón Bolívar's revolution and spent four years in a Venezuelan river town developing a formula that is still secret today — and through the chemistry of what a few dashes of concentrated botanical extract actually do to a drink. The answer involves poison-detection receptors, a 200-year-old supply chain that routes ingredients through England to prevent reverse-engineering, and less than two percent of your drink by volume.
Full show notes, research sources, and transcript at thealchemistsbar.com.
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