Hella Bitter

While current cocktail trends have veered away from this classic ingredient, bitters (whether aromatic, orange, or others) are still an important part of many classic drinks. See: the Negroni, the Manhattan, Old Fashioned, or the Bernardo. For most drinks that require bitters Angostura is the standby, with Fee Brothers putting up a fight. But recently there’s a new contender in the bitters market, and he’s a small-batch artisanal scrapper. Earlier this year Benjamin Harrison, a videographer based in New York used a Kickstarter to – well – kick start his new boozilogical venture, Hella Bitter.

Currently Hella Bitter offers three varieties: Citrus, Wormwood Aromatic, and Vanilla Kumquat. At present there are only a few retailers in New York City that offer Hella Bitter, but there is a way for those of us outside the NYC to get our hands on a bottle or two. Harrison has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to fund a bitters and soda cart. He can explain it better than I can though, so check out his video over at Kickstarter. Better hurry if you want to get in on this though, at the time of posting there are only 6 days left in their campaign.