Lemon Bitters

[tkd7]

I bought a bottle of this and I'm looking for ways that people have incorporated it into cocktails. I look for places where replacing orange bitters with lemon may be a nice twist. Wondering what others are doing.

[The Hersch]

Me too. My back-ordered Fee Brothers Lemon Bitters just arrived today from Surfas. What am I going to do with them? I'm pretty sure they'd be a nice addition to an Aviation cocktail.

[The Hersch]

Well, I ended up adding a dash to a martini, and boy was that a mistake. The stuff is cloudy! Milky, almost! What's with that? Is it supposed to be that way, or is there something wrong with what I received?

[thirtyoneknots]

It's hard to guage if my palate has become more aware or the recipe has changed (I strongly suspect the former) but Fee's bitters lately seem so glycerine-heavy as to add an unpleasant and destracting texture to cocktails. I really want to support this company, with their fantastic customer service and unique product line, but I wish they'd tweak the recipes a bit to get rid of those aspects of their bitters.

Anybody able to do a comparison with Bitter Truth Lemon Bitters?

-Andy

[jmfangio]

Well, I ended up adding a dash to a martini, and boy was that a mistake.

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Ugh - I did the same, and tossed the drink after one sip. It was like drinking Lemon Pledge. Maybe this was just the wrong drink to try them out one, but for now the rest of the bottle is gathering dust.

[The Hersch]

Ugh - I did the same, and tossed the drink after one sip.  It was like drinking Lemon Pledge. 

While I wrote above complaining of cloudiness (is yours cloudy too?), I made the Lemon Pledge connection too. At least it smells like Lemon Pledge; I've never tasted furniture polish. I think if you added the lemon bitters to a drink with another citrus element and a liqueur, like a Pegu Club or Aviation, they might work fine. Perhaps I'll try that this evening.

[slkinsey]

IMO the Fee's lemon bitters doesn't really have the complexity you'd like to have in a straight bitters. I see it as more of an "accent bitters" -- which is to say, something I might use in single dashes to accompany another bitters I'm already using in the drink.

Edit to add a note that this is my 7,000th post.

Edited March 1, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

[gethin]

Anybody able to do a comparison with Bitter Truth Lemon Bitters?

-Andy

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By coincidence, I happened to spot the Fee Bros lemon bitters on sale in London today so I snapped up a bottle. (Gerry's in Old Compton St, £4.95 a bottle if any other London based E-gulleteers are looking for it).

Having had a fair bit of cheap red wine this evening and quite a lot of grappa (plus a glass or two of white and a few glasses of Jameson) my taste buds may not be at their most accute , but for what its worth :

20 ml of London tap water plus 3 drops of Fees LB - cloudy,smells strongly of "lemon scented" cleaning product , tastes "lemony" but somewhat artficial

20 ml of London tap water plus 3 drops of bitter truth LB - clear , slightly orange tinted, smells of fresh lemon peel , tastes strongly of chlorine (which the tap water by itself itself doesn't)

20 ml of Berry Bros Gin plus 3 drops Fees LB - cloudy, smells of gin , tastes of lemon sherbet

20 ml of Berry Bros Gin plus 3 drops Bitter Truth LB, clear, smells lemony , tastes

of gin and lemon peel

gin, Fees LB (as above) + 10 ml Chambery vermouth - slightly cloudy, though this disperses, tastes lemony but rather flat.

gin , bitter truth LB (as above) + 10 ml Chambery - clear, smells lemony and herbal, tastes initially very piney but has a strong rounded lemon after taste and various herbal notes , I 'm enjoying drinking this.

My impression from all of this is that the Bitter Truth Lemon bitters bring out and highlights other flavours in way that the Fee Bros ones don't . This might be a good thing (with the gin and Chambery) or really rather unpleasant (with the tap water).

I'll do some more tasting next week (using Noilly Prat rather than the rather idiosyncratic Chambery which is all I have to hand tonight) and perhaps a few more assertive gins . I'll see how the bitters taste just diluted with some nice Welsh spring water too.

gethin

PS Happy St David's day to everyone ! I'm off to mix myself a "Hen Fasiwn" , using Penderyn madeira cask whiskey, a bit of sugar. a couple of drops angostura and a couple of drops Regans OB.

[thirtyoneknots]

Wonderful notes, thanks so much. I'll definitely be ordering some TBT lemon in the near future, their orange is already my favorite.

-Andy

[lancastermike]

IMO the Fee's lemon bitters doesn't really have the complexity you'd like to have in a straight bitters.  I see it as more of an "accent bitters" -- which is to say, something I might use in single dashes to accompany another bitters I'm already using in the drink.

Edit to add a note that this is my 7,000th post.

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I have just today ordered from Fee Bros. the lemon biters and some other items I was running low on.

7,000 is a heck of a number, Sam. More impressive to me is an average of 5 per day, {thats posts, not drinks}

[KatieLoeb]

I am loving my Fee Brothers Lemon Bitters. I've been adding it to a lot of cocktails with most favorable results. So far the two favorites are the Parisian - a twist on a French Martini with Hendrick's gin and thyme syrup and a Provencal Martini made with Citroen vodka and lavender syrup. Both get a dash of the Fee Bros. Lemon bitters at the end and it works just right to dial back the sweetness and wake up the flavors in the drink.