Not another bitters brand I hear you cry. Hold on though, the folks over at Maverick Drinks have a twist on their production process.
The Bitter Bastards range contains 25 different single-botanical bitters with flavours including Black Pepper, White Truffle, Sweet Orange, Naga Chilli, Sour Cherry and Chipotle.
Traditionally bitters are made by soaking your flavour botanicals in alcohol before bottling. This method has been used for a long, long time however according to the team behind Bitter Bastards, Maverick Drinks, ‘this process allows other, less desirable flavours to leach out of the surface of the botanical’.
This was the issue that they decided to address, to help ensure their bitters stood out from the crowd. The method they employed uses some fancy scientific style technology. Here is the process in their own words.
‘The botanicals were rapidly blended in top-quality base spirit to extract only the fresh-tasting, intense flavours by instantly opening up surface area. After the rapid maceration, the spirit is then clarified using a centrifuge.
This machine applies a force equivalent to roughly 5,000g to the liquid, clarifying it beautifully whilst retaining the essential oils. The result? Bitters with a fresh, vibrant flavour-profile.’
Currently a lot of the new bitters that come across the desks of BarLifeUK are very complicated in their flavours and ingredients. The thing that caught our eye about the Bitter Bastards range is their simplicity.
Each flavour is single botanical plus gentian for that bitterness hit. Then they are mixed with a base spirit – either high-proof Caribbean rum, high-proof 8 year old bourbon or grain vodka, dependent on which matches the botanical best.
If you want to get hold of these new bitters they are available through Master of Malt and lots of those retailers.