An apothecary counter with dried gentian root, cinchona bark and dried orange peel in jars beside a mortar and pestle, an old handwritten label, and a modern dasher bottle of aromatic bitters

Bitters Were Medicine First

September 9, 2026

Bitters take their taste from plant substances, chiefly alkaloids and glycosides. For centuries, a bitter infusion of roots and barks in alcohol was medicine, sold by apothecaries as a tonic and a digestive. The dasher bottle behind the bar descends from that pharmacy, and the cocktail had bitters in its earliest printed definition. This is the history behind the cocktail bitters guide and the Angostura bitters guide: where the bottles came from, and how they moved from the pharmacy counter to the bar.

The apothecary

The bitterness in the classic formulas comes from plants such as gentian root, cinchona bark, quassia, rhubarb root and orange peel, with aromatics such as anise, nutmeg and cloves added for scent. Steeped in alcohol, they became medicinal products in the 1600s and 1700s and, in time, a standard apothecary's formula. Bitters have long been taken as appetizers and digestives, before a meal and after it.

The word "cocktail," 1806

In May 1806, a newspaper in Hudson, New York, printed a definition of a new word. A cocktail, it explained, was a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters. That is the earliest unambiguous printed definition, and bitters are in it as a required ingredient. Bitters may first have gone into the drink because of their reputation as medicine.

The earliest cocktail was a spirit, sweetened and diluted, with a dash of the pharmacy, much the same build as what is now called an Old Fashioned. The Maple Old Fashioned recipe follows the same pattern, with maple syrup in place of the sugar.

Venezuela, 1824

Angostura aromatic bitters began with a doctor who had served as a military physician at Waterloo. Johann Siegert, a German army surgeon, took a post in the Venezuelan town of Angostura, on the Orinoco, as Surgeon General of Simón Bolívar's armies, and by 1824 he had perfected a bitter tonic of herbs and spices as a medical elixir for the soldiers. Its flavor came mainly from gentian, and he called it Amargo Aromático, aromatic bitters. Sailors passing through the port took it for seasickness and carried it to ports around the world, and by 1875 Siegert's sons had moved the family business to Trinidad.

The nineteenth century: a bottle on every bar

In the 1800s, bitters that had been sold as patent medicines found new life behind the bar. Peychaud's, the New Orleans bitters, was created by the pharmacist Antoine Amédée Peychaud and became essential to the Sazerac. Peychaud opened his pharmacy on Royal Street in 1834, and the bitters carry notes of anise, nutmeg and clove. Boker's, introduced in 1828 and soon a bartenders' favorite, and Abbott's, from about 1872, were among the bitters on those bars.

Bitters were where the pharmacy and the saloon overlapped. On the pharmacy side, the patent-medicine trade went as far as claiming cures for all diseases. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required labels to list ingredients such as alcohol and curbed overtly misleading claims.

Prohibition and after

When the United States banned alcohol in 1920, non-potable bitters skirted the law because of their medicinal use, but demand for them dropped. By the latter half of the twentieth century, Angostura was the standard bitters behind the bar, Peychaud's was still poured in and around New Orleans, and Fee Brothers had been making orange bitters since Prohibition.

The revival

The cocktail renaissance that began in the late 1990s rediscovered the old pre-Prohibition recipes, and with them the bitters those recipes called for. Bartenders turned to Fee Brothers' orange bitters, and new commercial lines grew out of their own batches made from historical recipes. Today bitters also turn up in the kitchen as a seasoning and in low-proof drinks, where a few dashes give them a spine. The guide to using bitters outside cocktails covers the kitchen. The zero-proof Negroni recipe covers the drinks, and notes that bitters contain alcohol, so they belong in low-proof versions rather than strictly alcohol-free ones.

What the history explains

Why bitters are used by the dash: the infusion is concentrated, made to be used a little at a time, as it was when it was sold as medicine. Why the flavors lean to roots and barks: those were the bitter medicinal plants. Why a bitter drink before dinner feels like a ritual: bitters were long taken as tonics and appetizers. And bitters belong with the vanilla and the salt because they are a seasoning.

Four of the names in this history: Angostura aromatic bitters (shop Angostura aromatic bitters), Peychaud's (shop Peychaud's bitters), Boker's from Dr. Adam Elmegirab (shop Boker's bitters) and Abbott's from Bob's Bitters (shop Abbott's bitters). The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.