What is the difference between a bitter and a liqueur?

Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2019/787 divides spirit drinks into 44 categories, of which bitter is number 30 and liqueur number 33.

Each category has its own description and its own requirements. A bottle may only carry the name of a category if it meets those requirements.

Alongside bitter and liqueur there are related categories in the same list: crème de is number 34, egg liqueur or advocaat number 39, liqueur with egg number 40 and Beerenburg number 43.

According to category 33, a liqueur must contain at least 100 grams of sugar per litre; that sweetness is the hard requirement, not the flavour direction.

That is why a liqueur can taste of almost anything: nuts, coffee, cream, orange, liquorice, aniseed or herbs. What these bottles share is the sugar content.

A herbal liqueur and a herbal bitter can therefore lie close together, while in the regulation they fall under different categories.

A bitter owes its category to the predominantly bitter taste, which comes from herbs, roots, bark or citrus peel.

The full name of category 30 is bitter or bitter. The characteristic on which that name rests is the taste, whereas for liqueur it is the sugar content that appears in the requirements.

That is why bitters vary so widely. A Frisian beerenburg, an Italian amaro and a cocktail bitter with a dasher top all fall under the same heading.

A bottle carries one category in its sales denomination, but in practice the words bitter and liqueur often appear together on the label.

Dutch herbal bitters are sometimes called kruidenlikeur on the label and German products carry the word Kräuterlikör. These are trade names, and in themselves they say nothing about the legal category.

If you want to know what category a bottle falls under, look at the sales name and the ingredients, not at the word that is largest on the label.

If you are looking for something sweet to go with dessert, look at the liqueurs; if you are looking for something spicy for a cocktail, look at the bitters.

In the shop in Bathmen, bitter and liqueur are on two separate shelves. Beerenburg, amaro, jachtbitter and cocktail bitters are with the bitters.

If you are in doubt, ask at the counter. What you are looking for depends more often on how you are going to serve it than on the category on the bottle.