What is a cocktail bitters?

A cocktail bitter is added to a cocktail in small amounts to bring out the flavour, the way salt does in a dish.

Angostura Limited puts it briefly on its own site: one dash to ignite flavour. The bitters is a seasoning, not a base spirit.

In the official IBA recipe for the Manhattan, 1 dash of Angostura sits beside 50 ml rye whiskey and 20 ml red vermouth. That proportion shows how small the share is.

Angostura Limited sells three cocktail bitters under its own name: aromatic bitters, orange bitters and cocoa bitters.

Aromatic bitters is the kind named in the classic recipes, including the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned and the Champagne Cocktail. Orange and cocoa bitters are used as a supplement.

In addition, other producers make bitters based on herbs, gentian, wormwood or citrus. They are on the shelf in Bathmen with the other bitters.

A dash is one short shake from a bottle with a dasher top and is not a legally defined measure.

The amount depends on the stopper and on how hard you shake. Anyone who wants to be precise measures their own dash once and sticks to that measure afterwards.

Recipes therefore use the word dash rather than a number of millilitres. The IBA, which has managed the official cocktail recipes since 1951, does the same.

In the official IBA recipes it stays at 1 to a few dashes per glass: 1 dash of Angostura in the Manhattan, 2 in the Champagne Cocktail and a few in the Old Fashioned.

Cocktail bitters and herbal bitters both fall under category 30 of Regulation (EU) 2019/787, which is known in full as bitter or bitter.

The regulation looks at the predominantly bitter taste, not at the way you use the bottle. A cocktail bitter by the dash and a beerenburg from a shot glass are therefore in the same category.

The practical difference lies in the cap and the dosage, not in the rules.

In Bathmen the cocktail bitters are on the shelf with the other bitters, not with the liqueurs or the mixers.

They can be recognised by their small size and by the dasher cap under the screw cap. The label bears the word bitters, usually followed by the flavour direction.

Weet u niet welke bitter bij een recept hoort, noem dan de cocktail aan de toonbank. Vanaf 18 jaar; NIX18 geldt ook hier.

Too much cocktail bitters will dominate the glass, because a bitter is meant as a seasoning and not as a base drink.

Angostura Limited states that rule itself on its own site: one dash to ignite flavour, one dash to bring the flavour to life.

So start with one dash, taste, and only then add a second. There is no undoing it: you cannot get an extra dash out of the glass again.