Fee Brothers Guide: The Rochester Bitters Family Since 1864

Fee Brothers is a family company in Rochester, New York, and its own website says it has made flavors since 1864. For most of that time it did not make cocktail bitters at all. The family sold groceries, made wine, imported liquor and got through Prohibition on syrups and flavorings. Bitters came later, after a chemist in the third generation, who began helping the business in 1951, spent two years decoding his father's recipes. This guide covers the family, the bitters that came out of that work, and how three of them, orange, chocolate and cherry, each fit a drink.

Two terms first. Cocktail bitters are concentrated flavorings made from botanicals such as peels, roots, barks and spices, used a few drops at a time to season a drink the way salt seasons food. A dash is the small splash that comes out when a bitters bottle is turned over with a quick flick; Fee Brothers suggests 1 to 3 dashes per drink and lists that amount as 0.3 milliliters, a few drops. For a fuller introduction to the category, start with the cocktail bitters complete guide.

A butcher shop, a saloon and a store

The company's history page starts with Owen Fee, born in County Monaghan, Ireland, who arrived in Montreal with his wife, Margaret, in 1835. The family later settled in Rochester, New York, where Owen opened a butcher shop by 1847. After he died in 1855, Margaret raised their five children, and by 1863, according to the company, the family had converted the butcher shop into a saloon (a bar) and delicatessen (a shop selling prepared foods). On March 5, 1864, Margaret mortgaged her house so her son James could open a grocery and liquor store at 5 St. Paul Street. He named it James Fee & Company and began making wine, and the business later grew into importing liquor. That 1864 store is the date the company puts on its homepage today.

The name on the bottle came later. In 1883, the history page says, the three remaining brothers changed the company name from "James Fee and Brothers" to "Fee Brothers." A fire on February 5, 1908, badly damaged the family's building on North Water Street, and the company says rebuilding was finished by that August.

Prohibition and the syrup business

Prohibition was the national ban on making, selling and transporting alcoholic drinks in the United States, created by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution and undone by the Twenty-first, whose first section reads, in full, "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."

Fee Brothers, a wine and liquor business, had to find something else to sell. Its history page describes three moves. It helped households make their own wine, using a loophole that let each head of household make 200 gallons of wine a year at home. It sold a non-alcoholic malt extract syrup called "Bruno." And it made flavorings such as Benedictine and Chartreuse (two famous herbal liqueurs), brandy and rum, along with cordial syrups (sweet flavored syrups) developed to be added to homemade alcohol as flavoring. The company says that cordial syrup line is the origin of the syrups it still sells. After repeal, the company says, it returned to selling wine in December 1933, then had to shrink sharply during the Great Depression. In those years John C. Fee II developed a concentrated product called Frothy Mixer, and the company credits him with starting its cocktail mix line. John II died in October 1951, the North Water Street building was sold that December, and the plan from then on was to discontinue all of the company's alcoholic products.

The coded recipes and the first bitters

The third generation is where bitters enter the story. John C. Fee III, known as Jack, held a chemistry degree and worked as a chemist at Eastman Kodak. According to the company, his father had written most of the recipes in an indecipherable code, so much of that knowledge died with him. Jack began helping his mother and sister in 1951, working days at Kodak and evenings making batches, and spent two years redeveloping the recipes before leaving Kodak in 1953. Before long, the history page says, new products such as grenadine (a sweet red syrup used in drinks) and bitters began to appear on the display shelves in the company's front office. The company moved to 114 Field Street in 1953 and to a larger building on Portland Avenue in June 1964.

The range stayed small for years. The company says that in the 1960s and 1970s there were only three bitters flavors: orange, old fashioned and mint. All three are still sold today, alongside the many flavors added since.

Those bottles mattered beyond Rochester. The history page says that for many years Fee Brothers was one of the last producers of cocktail bitters in the United States, and that it kept these products from going extinct before the great classic cocktail revival, the wave of interest in older cocktail recipes and ingredients. A company that had stepped away from alcoholic products after 1951 ended up helping keep a classic cocktail ingredient alive.

The family since

Jack's son, John C. Fee IV, served as sales manager from 1973 to 1985, and the company says annual sales passed $1 million for the first time under him. Ellen Fee joined in 1979 after earning a degree in art and before long became production manager; the company credits her with 67 new products during her time managing operations and research and development. Joseph Fee began working full time in 1991 and brought the company into the computer age, and in 1995 a new label showing the four original brothers was introduced. In 2012 Jack transferred ownership to Ellen and Joe. Jack died in 2015 and Joe in 2020. In 2021 ownership passed to the fifth generation, brothers Benn and Jon Spacher, Ellen and Joe's nephews. Benn, who had trained to take over Ellen's role as production manager, became chief operating officer on January 1, 2021, and Jon became chief executive that April. The company lists its address as 453 Portland Avenue in Rochester and says its products have shipped to every continent except Antarctica.

Orange: the bottle for clear, stirred drinks

West Indian Orange Bitters (shop Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Bitters). The product description says its flavor comes principally from the skins of oranges grown in the West Indies, the islands of the Caribbean, and the maker describes it as vibrant and aromatic, with orange oils that bring bright, bitter flavors.

That profile suits drinks with nothing to hide behind. A Dry Martini, in the International Bartenders Association's standard recipe, is just gin and dry vermouth (a wine flavored with herbs and strengthened with added spirit) stirred with ice, so every ingredient shows. One dash of orange bitters adds citrus aroma and a bitter edge without the juice that would cloud the drink or the sugar that would soften it. Start with a single dash, taste, and add a second only if the drink seems flat. The same logic works in a gin and tonic or a glass of soda water.

Chocolate: the bottle for dark spirits

Aztec Chocolate Bitters (shop Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters). The maker's description begins with the Aztecs, who it says celebrated with a bitter drink made of cacao beans, peppers and spices, and suggests a few dashes to expand the flavor of cocktails.

Chocolate notes suit darker, richer drinks. An Old Fashioned, in the International Bartenders Association's standard recipe, is bourbon or rye whiskey with a sugar cube, a few dashes of bitters and a little water, stirred over ice, so the bitters are the main seasoning in the glass. Swapping the usual aromatic bitters for two dashes of Aztec Chocolate turns the drink darker and rounder without changing the spirit. Fee Brothers' own published recipes point the same way. Black Silk, a recipe by Noah Heath on the maker's site, is built on Jamaican rum and coffee-infused aged rum with vanilla syrup and Averna (an amaro from Sicily, in Italy; "amaro" is Italian for "bitter"), seasoned with three dashes of Turkish Tobacco Bitters and five drops of Aztec Chocolate.

Orange and chocolate also work together. In Cacao à l'Orange, a recipe by Christopher Lazich of Waypoint Spirits in Bloomfield, Connecticut, published by Fee Brothers, vodka, triple sec and demerara syrup (a syrup made from a brown, coarse-grained sugar) are shaken with 2 to 3 dashes of Aztec Chocolate Bitters, 3 to 4 dashes of West Indian Orange Bitters and two more Fee products, Fee Foam and Roasted Duck Fat Wash. It is served in a martini glass or a coupe, garnished with a dehydrated orange wheel and a dusting of cocoa powder.

Cherry: the fruit bottle

Cherry Bitters (shop Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters). The maker calls it a member of the fruit bitters family and suggests a few dashes to add its strong fruit flavor to cocktails.

The natural place to start is a drink that already has a cherry in it. A Manhattan, in the International Bartenders Association's standard recipe, is rye whiskey stirred with sweet red vermouth and a dash of bitters, garnished with a cocktail cherry, and a dash of cherry bitters in place of one aromatic dash makes the garnish part of the drink itself. Cherry bitters also brighten a glass of soda water or a whiskey sour, where the fruit flavor reads clearly against lemon.

The rest of the range

The maker's recipes show how far the line now reaches. Rosé Paloma, by André Heller, mixes mezcal (a Mexican spirit made from agave), a pinch of salt, dry rosé wine and soda with four dashes of Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters. Ancient Luminary, by Brandon Hockaday, seasons overproof rye whiskey with Plum Bitters, Cardamom Bitters, five-spice syrup, spiced pear liqueur and dry vermouth. The full Fee Brothers line is gathered in the Fee Brothers collection.

A one-variable test

The quickest way to learn the three flagship bottles is to change only the bitters. Make three small Old Fashioneds with the same whiskey, the same sugar and the same stirring, and season each with two dashes of a different bottle: West Indian Orange, Aztec Chocolate, Cherry. Taste them side by side with water in between. Going by the maker's descriptions, expect the orange to read brightest, the chocolate darkest and the cherry fruitiest, with the whole difference coming from a fraction of a milliliter in each glass. Bitters and soda water makes an even simpler test bench, though alcohol-based bitters still bring a small amount of alcohol. For bitters outside the glass, in coffee, desserts and sauces, see the guide to cooking with cocktail bitters, and for the tools and glasses around them, the home bar guide.

A company that outlasted its own trade

Fee Brothers did not set out to make bitters. It sold wine and liquor until Prohibition closed that trade, lived on syrups and flavorings, and planned after 1951 to drop its alcoholic products. Its bitters grew out of a chemist's two years spent decoding his father's recipes. By the company's account, those bottles were still being made when interest in classic cocktails returned, which is how a family business from 1864 came to be known for a product it added generations later.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.

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