Harris's patented* pick-me-up bitters

D.R. Harris is an ancient pharmacy in St James’s, the heart of London’s “Clubland” (that’s “club” in the sense of gentleman’s club full of leather armchairs, not in the Ibiza sense of the word). It’s been there since 1790. Not the bright strip-lights and melamine shelves of Boots or Superdrug, but rather a carpeted gloomth and mahogany shelving displaying tastefully modest quantities of their soaps, fragrances, shaving products—I’m sure the discreetly scarce volume of product on display is somehow designed to create a sense of scarcity that will justify the high prices. There is even an elegant pedestal wash basin in one corner: I’m not sure if this is so you can actually try stuff out, or whether it’s designed to show you how great their products will look in your bathroom.

Back in the 19th century the shop was famed for it’s “pick-me-up” tonic, available either as a ready-to-drink draught over the counter for those with an immediate need, or in concentrated form for home use. As might be appropriate in Clubland, it was much prized as a hangover cure. It was on sale from the 1860s but at some point in the early 2000s they discontinued it; there is a suggestion that it didn’t really taste very nice, though the main ingredients were cardamom, clove and gentian which (aside from the bitterness of the gentian) don’t sound too bad.**

So I was intrigued to hear that they have now brought it back in the form of a cocktail bitters, reimagined with the help of Bob Petrie from Bob’s Bitters. Interestingly, the blurb on the website still looks at the concoction as a restorative, listing the beneficial effects of the ingredients on the digestion, liver, mood, etc, but at the same time offers cocktail recipes. I guess it saves time if you can take your hangover cure at the same time as the drink that gives you the hangover in the first place.

Although there have been many bitters entering the market in recent years, I decided to do my analysis alongside Angostura bitters, without doubt the most well known, and probably the only bitters that most people in the UK have heard of—here even Peychaud’s is not known outside the realm of the enthusiast. 

Open the cap and sniff the Angostura bottle and you get a powerful smell, an earthy base with bitter menthol or mint top notes. For me there is a strong element of cinnamon or cassia, with clove and a bit of chocolate too. Taste it neat and again there is heavy cinnamon, with bright, brittle mentholic fumes rising up. They don’t give much away about what is in it, other than gentian plus various vegetable extracts.

The Harris bitters has an immediately similar nose (but then gentian and clove are key ingredients), but at the same time fruitier and less woody. I get lime—in fact this is not given as an ingredient though there is lemon peel and bergamot. Pour some out and you’re immediately struck by the pale, straw-like colour compared to the dark red-brown of Angostura. Tasted neat it again shows less of the woodiness of cinnamon but it does have a fruitiness like jam or marmalade. I would say that the two bitters clearly have similar building blocks, with woody, earthy base notes and bitter, aromatic top notes, but the Harris offering does seem more sophisticated; you find yourself probing its complexity as tendrils of vanilla, chocolate and even chilli emerge (the fiery hint may come from ginger). 

The two bitters with water, Angostura on the left and Harris on the right

Compared to the Harris, the Angostura does seem rather crude now. But of course neither of these concoctions is intended to be consumed neat. The original Harris pick-me-up was simply added to water, so I tried adding five good dashes to a shot of water. The Angostura retained its essential character strongly at this dilution—cloves, cinnamon and gentian bitterness. The Harris was again lighter and more complex. I’m convinced you can smell the honey, but on the tongue I’d say it was actually less sweet than the Angostura. (Note that the Angostura bottle releases liquid much more readily that the Harris bottle, so it is hard to be scientifically precise about the quantities involved.) Overall the Harris is lighter, brighter and with a more pronounced high bitter finish.

Next I tried a Pink Gin, the classic bitters-forward blend of just gin and bitters, usually with water. This was a favourite of my father-in-law, who took it unchilled, which I believe is traditional. I blended 15ml gin with 10ml water and three dashes of bitters. In these proportions the Angostura bitters certainly make their presence felt and do sit well with the botanicals of the gin (I was using Tanqueray, which famously employs just four, juniper, coriander, angelica and liquorice). With the Harris bitters, of course, your Pink Gin isn’t pink. It also has a subtler nose with honey and ginger coming up. On the tongue I would say it was actually more harmonious with the gin than Angostura, but again with a more bitter finish. Intriguingly, it also seemed to evolve and “open up” in the glass, becoming more characterful as time goes by.

A Martinez with Harris bitters, made using the recipe on the site. Very good it is

Finally, I try a Manhattan, mixing 15ml of Bulleit bourbon with 5ml of Belsazar Red vermouth and a good dash of bitters. Even in this reduced quantity compared to the previous test, and against some powerfully flavoured other ingredients, there is a difference between the two bitters: the Angostura makes for a heavier, jammier cocktail, while the Harris bitters made a lighter, more approachable drink, with a pronounced bright bitterness. It does come across as more sophisticated, less heavy and somehow more thoughtful—if that is something you look for in a cocktail.

So overall I am impressed. The Harris bitters are not cheap: 100ml is £20, though you can buy a 10ml taster for £6.50. But by comparison Angostura is £10 for 200ml, so a quarter of the price. (Angostura is more alcoholic too—44.7% compared to Harris’s 34%—but in the quantities in which it is consumed this is not really relevant.) But certainly the Harris Pick-Me-Up bitters are worth it, given that 100ml will last you a while. A note of warning, however: you had better like bitter flavours. I gave both versions with gin to Mrs H. to taste and she made that scrunched-up “this tastes like poison!” face that even hoppy ale produces in her. But if you are at ease with bitterness you will also find much more to this complex blend.

D.R. Harris’s Pick-Me-Up bitters can be ordered from the company’s website or if you have access to the capital you can saunter into their shop and buy it over the counter.

* I’ve no idea if it is patented.

** Elsewhere I’ve seen a suggestion that it was only in the early 2000s that they realised they would need an alcohol licence to sell it, which they clearly had never had, though I guess they must have an off-licence now.

Big Gin makes a big impression

While helping to judge the recent Craft Distilling Expo Gin of the Year, it was my great pleasure to meet Ben Capdevielle and Holly Robinson of Captive Spirits Distilling, part of the wave of “craft”, “boutique” or “artisan” distilling that is sweeping the US at the moment. Based in Ballard, near Seattle, they make Big Gin, both in its standard form and in a version that has been aged in ex-bourbon barrels.

Theirs is not a happy-go-lucky tale of casting around for something to do and hitting on the idea of making a gin on a whim.* Ben is actually a third-generation distiller—his grandfather was a distiller for Templeton Rye** during Prohibition—and the pair spent four years visiting distilleries and experimenting with botanicals and distillation variables before finally launching their product in 2012. “We are using the traditional method of making gin,” Holly explains, “and creating a small scale, boutique brand just using two 100-gallon pot stills. We are exclusively a gin company, instead of making a variety of spirits like most of the budding brands. We have a few other gin-centric products that will trickle out in the next few years…”

Holly and Ben (second and third from the left) at the Craft Distilling Expo Gin
of the Year judging

As the name suggests the idea was to make a bold, unashamedly gin-flavoured gin. “We took this away from all the big players in the gin game,” Holly says. “Consumers are used to drinking Beefeater, Bombay, etc—we wanted something that ginners could identify with, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.” The botanicals are indeed mostly conventional—juniper, coriander, bitter orange peel, angelica, cassia, cardamom, orris—plus grains of paradise (not unusual either, being present in Bombay Sapphire) and Tasmanian pepper berries. The spirit base is made from corn. “This was the most neutral base we found to impart the botanicals,” Holly says.

Uncork a bottle of Big Gin and it is certainly big, with a strong waft of juniper. But it is more complex than that, with orange peel, dried fruit and a pronounced floral note like crystallised violets, perhaps from the angelica. There is also a herbal stemmy quality and a hint of ginger. It is big, bright and rich.

A Last Word made with Big Gin

On the palate it is powerful but remarkably smooth and sweetish, given that it is a hefty 47% ABV. Perhaps the corn-spirit base lends this sweetness. The flavour follows on from the nose, with that floral note to the fore and a slight peppery-bitter finish. It easily works in a Martini or gin and tonic, basically making its own rules. It is well-suited to a Negroni, clearly making its presence felt, whereas more delicate gins can sometimes get lost in the present of the Campari and vermouth.

Another muscular cocktail to test a gin is the Last Word, traditionally equal parts gin, Green Chartreuse, lime juice and maraschino: it has a balance between the sweetness of the liqueurs and the tartness of the lime, but these elements and the herbal blast from the Charteuse can drown the gin. I have to say that even Big Gin struggled here. But I noticed that on Simon Difford’s website he is now advocating a 3:1:1:1 ratio (the 3 being the gin). With Tarquin’s Cornish Gin I find that it does really need these proportions before you can really taste the gin in the mix, but Big Gin reaches that point at only 2:1:1:1.***

An Aviation made with Big Gin

I felt that Big Gin was less successful, however, in an Aviation, being perhaps too powerful for the subtle flavours of the maraschino and crème de violette (of which there is only about a teaspoon, otherwise the colour of the cocktail veers from the pale lilac-blue meant to represent the sky, from which the drink gets its name: try something like 50ml gin, 12.5ml lemon juice, 12.5ml maraschino, 5ml crème de violette).

You can get a sense of the big, savoury qualities of Big Gin from the recommended cocktails on the Captive Spirits website. The Out-of-Towner involves making a fennel syrup (plus gin, lemon juice and triple sec), and two of the recipes use elderflower liqueur (such as St Germain). The Morning Paper tops gin and elderflower with sparkling wine and a splash of grapefruit juice, and there is definitely a continuum between the gin botanicals and the sweetly pungent qualities of elderflower.

Although Captive are determinedly not planning to make a whiskey, they are interested in pushing their gin in different directions, such as the bourbon barrel aged example now on the market. “All the worlds best spirits are aged in bourbon barrels,” Holly explains. “With Big Gin being so flavorful, we thought it could stand up well and one could still actually taste the gin. Thankfully, we were correct.”

A Martinez made with Bourbon Barreled Big Gin

Ageing gin is all the rage it seems, but at a tasting of several of them earlier this year I did feel that none of the examples seemed particularly successful, with the wood notes somehow quarrelling with the essential gin flavour. But there is certainly a tradition: Seagrams have always rested their gin in charred new oak barrels to smooth off the rough edges of the spirit.

The barrel-aged version of Big Gin came as a revelation to me, however. Perhaps there is something about the prominent orange notes in the gin which marries well with the wood flavours, or maybe there is something about these particular barrels (which presumably have had bourbon in them for a long time, damping down the sawmill quality of fresh wood). On the nose the sharp juniper of the base gin is softened but still present, while a warmth and sherried sweetness are added, plus an enhancement of the dried fruit flavours I noticed before and a pleasant woody, almost mossy, mustiness. On the palate there is excellent integration of the aromatic gin elements and the tannic, vanilla wood flavours, plus clear notes of bourbon, emphasising the orange peel.

On a whim I try to make a sort of sweet Martini using Regal Rogue Bianco and the result shows remarkable balance and harmony from two strongly-flavoured ingredients, a little like a Martinez with orange and herbal notes all blending well. I try making a Martinez, using 2 shots gin, ½ a shot each of dry and sweet vermouth and a dash of maraschino, the result is sublime. Likewise in a Negroni it works as well as the normal Big Gin but with an extra dimension that fits naturally, as in a Manhattan or Boulvardier**** (which it virtually is). It really is a revelation.

A Spring Fling made with Bourbon Barreled Big Gin

There is a recommended cocktail, the Spring Fling, that once again uses elderflower liqueur, this time with the barrel-aged gin plus dry vermouth and some celery bitters. It’s an extraordinary tour de force, with the elderflower merging with the big herbal flavours of the gin, followed by a sweetness emerging and woody notes, then a fiery warmth. You also get a sense of sun-kissed Mediterranean aromatic herbs, like thyme or oregano. The prescribed garnish is grapefruit zest, but I only had lemon to hand and its aroma floats over the other flavours, balancing without muddying.

If you like gin then you should try Big Gin. It’s nice to come across a product that is not trying to make a “gin” for people who really want vodka, nor is it trying push the flavour in outré directions for reasons of gimmickry alone. But at the same time Big Gin is distinct. And it is big.

In the UK you can buy Big Gin through Master of Malt for £39.96 and the bourbon barrel aged version for £44.85.

* Talking to Holly you realise that the process of starting up a distillery is more of a bureaucratic slog than most of us realise, especially in the US. “There is a lot of red tape, but mostly several different levels of permitting, each of which cannot commence without the previous—it's a domino game. First Federal, than State, then City, then Fire, etc… Every state/city has different ideas of what/how things should be done. That’s the confusing part. Once that is all waded through, it’s a slow start to getting product out the door.” To help with all of this the couple got a third partner, old friend Todd Leabman, to help with the paperwork and accounting.

** The good folk of Templeton, Iowa, apparently carried on distilling whiskey throughout Prohibition and Al Capone is said to have like it so much he would send a driver all the way there from New York to stock up. 

*** It an interesting experiment, because if you start with the punchy sweet-and-sour traditional recipe and just add more gin, it’s easy to think, “Oh, no, this is getting too dry.” But if you come back to it later and try it you do realise it as a good, subtler cocktail. All the lime and Charteuse are very much there, but now you can taste the details of the gin too. Hurrah.

**** 1½ shots bourbon or rye whiskey, 1 shot Campari, 1 shot sweet vermouth, so a sort of mash-up between a Negroni and a Manhattan. It was invented by New Yorker Harry McElhone after he emigrated to Paris, fleeing Prohibition, and set up Harry’s New York Bar. He created it for ex-pat Erskine Gwynne in honour of his Parisian magazine The Boulvardier.

Winter wonders at Purl

DBS considers the merits of the Blue Blazer

You may recall an earlier reference to a foray to molecular mixology nexus Purl in November—it’s a place where nothing is quite as it seems and drinks you thought you knew are deconstructed and reimagined before your very tongue. So we were delighted to be invited down there again to taste some highlights from their new winter menu.

I like to maintain a healthy cynicism about most things, and while showmanship is part of the cocktail experience I do like to judge every drink on what it ultimately tastes like. Purl’s mango and pine “caviar” is imaginative and looks beautiful, but part of me feels that I don’t really want rubbery sacs floating in my drink. But much of molecular mixology is actually (ironically)  about this sort of unmixing, and presenting the flavour elements somehow separated; the most successful Purl drink I’d had to date was their Earl Grey Martini, where the tea flavour is locked into a foam that floats on the Martini and you are hit by alternating taste waves as you sip. And there is much to be said for this—after all, I’m sure we all would rather our Christmas dinner plate contained discrete piles of turkey, gravy, roasties, stuffing, sprouts (hey, I like sprouts), between which our knives and forks can flit, rather than a purée of everything together.

So what did Purl have in store for us? And would it make sense on the tongue or be merely full of helium and jelly, signifying nothing?

ROUND ONE

(Left) Crystal Clear Martinez, (right) a teacup of Purl

David had: 
Crystal Clear Martinez
Jensen’s Old Tom Gin, Gancia sweet vermouth, maraschino, Bob’s Orange Bitters

Orangey and sweet. Makes you realise just what a long journey it has been from this sort of drink to the Dry Martini. I’m not familiar with Gancia, but my tastebuds are fooled into thinking there is red vermouth in here even though the colour shows otherwise. Perhaps it’s just been years since I drank a sweet white vermouth (although my mother used like Cinzano Bianco on the rocks as an aperitif with a slice of lime, and I recall thinking it was rather a nice drink). But I don’t have a terribly sweet tooth, and all in all this is a bit too sugary for me. My search continues.

Clayton had:
Purl
Hendrick’s gin, Doom Bar bitter, hops, cinnamon, anise, wormwood

The drink that the bar is named after, purl was originally ale spiked with wormwood and perhaps other bitter flavours such as orange peel. It was apparently popular as an early-morning eye-opener for labourers—I guess the bitterness kept you perky (ale was not originally hopped). Later it became a drink of mulled ale spiked with gin, sweetened with sugar and tickled with spices. Purl’s purl is a combination, a mix of bitter beer and gin, served warm and sweetened with brown sugar and honey. Not all the ingredients are listed on the menu: I’m pretty sure there is orange in this too. It is sweet but also with a bitter edge and a striking savoury note—perhaps salty, almost meaty. Christmas spices are to the fore and it all seems very seasonal. But again, it is ultimately too sweet for my palate, too sticky to be hearty or quaffable.
DBS says: “I found this a rather tasty drink and was happy to finish off Hartley's teacup. A recent enthusiast of hot cocktails (I've even tried a hot Martini!) I enjoyed the transition from the spirit to the sweetness of the ale finishing with spice.”

ROUND TWO

Tom prepares the ice cream

David had: 
Nitro-Egg-Nog Ice Cream
Diplomatico Reserva rum, whole egg, cream, sugar and spices, topped with flamed mincemeat

David wolfed down this construction before I had a taste so Purl co-owner Tom knocked me up a taster of my own. Given that egg nog traditionally contains egg, cream and sugar I guess it was inevitable that the twitchy trigger fingers of the Purl gang would bring the liquid nitrogen to bear and turn it into an ice cream. My sample was actually much less intense than I expected, in terms both of booziness and sweetness, but expect a rum and raisin ice cream essentially.

The impish Pickleback

Clayton had:
Pickleback
Black Bush Irish Whiskey, served straight up, with a dill pickle foam, dill pickle flavoured cocktail stick and pickle selection

DBS had been gleefully telling stories of the concept of the Pickleback for some time—a shot of Irish whiskey with a pickle juice chaser “to take the edge off the whiskey”. This is clearly nonsense, as Irish whiskey in my experience doesn’t have an edge to be gotten rid of, but the combination here rears its head. It’s not so strange a concept: many cocktails take base spirits and add sweet and/or sour ingredients and the use of vinegar rather than lemon juice goes back to “shrubs” of the 18th century*. In fact the drink here comes across as a sort of Gibson Manhattan, if you see what I mean.

The vinegar presence is subtle and the there is also a strange savouriness, salty and smoky, but also with hints of cream and chocolate. The beverage is served in a port pipe, a vessel with a stem at the base, like a tobacco pipe, allowing you to draw liquid off the bottom. As a way of drinking port it’s pretty pointless (I was given a set once and even the manufacturers struggle to explain themselves, muttering something about the liquid at the bottom being unoxidised; yet the aroma from the surface of the drink is a big part of the pleasure). In this case it means you can sip your drink while the garnish sits, undisturbed, right under your nose, and the aroma of juicy veg and onion acids plays a big part in the experience. Tom did suggest, as I daintily sucked on my pipe stem, that if you knocked it back in one hearty suck then the whiskey is quickly followed down the pipe by the pickle foam, with an intriguing flavour evolution, but I was not about to cane my cocktail. Normally the foams work well because you smell and taste them as you tip the liquid through them to your lips, but here perhaps the port pipe concept is actually working against the foam. I enjoyed this drink, though I couldn’t comfortably drink more than one.
DBS says: “I tried an original Pickleback (a shot of Jameson's followed by a shot of pickle brine) about twelve months ago, and found that horrific. I still shudder at the memory. So you can imagine my reluctance to try Hartley’s drink. In the interests of science I proceeded—and was pleasantly surprised. In short, if you must have a Pickleback, have one at Purl.”

ROUND THREE

Mixing the Blue Blazer

David had: 
Blue Blazer
Four Roses Yellow Label bourbon thrown ablaze between silver vessels, with selected spices and sugar

Invented as a showpiece by the legendary “Father of Mixology” Jerry Thomas in the 19th century, the Blue Blazer involved mixing burning Scotch whisky with hot water by tossing it between two tankards. “If done well this will have the appearance of a continued stream of liquid fire,” wrote Thomas in his 1862 How to Mix Drinks. Tom certainly has the action down. But I’d always thought the drink sounded rather dull actually to imbibe. I was pleasantly surprised by this one: it is smoother than neat bourbon, with a softening fruitiness, yet has a whisky bite on the finish. The heat brings out the aromas of the volatile citrus oils. It has a really interesting flavour and a medicinal quality—in a good sense. The Purl boys don’t put all the ingredients on the menu, but I think Tom said this one also contained Chase blackberry liqueur and Green Chartreuse, which explains some of the fruity, spicy complexity.
DBS says: “I am in no doubt that the Blue Blazer is my favourite and very likely the most enjoyable one I have had at Purl so far (but then I am one for theatrics).”

The egg cup with its cover

Clayton had: 
Green Fairy Sazerac
Hennessey VSOP stirred with sugar, lemon peel and Peychaud’s Bitters, topped with a Butterfly absinthe “air”

The vessel for this one is a silver egg cup that comes with its own domed cover. The drink is actually served in the cover, inverted and rested in the cup, becoming a flagon that can only be put down in its “holder”. This sort of fun aside, the Green Fairy Sazerac turns out to be my favourite drink of the evening. A Sazerac normally has its dose of absinthe controlled by, say, rolling some around the inside of the glass then pouring out the excess before adding the remaining ingredients. Here the green foam (sorry, “air”—there is a difference apparently) holds the absinthe flavour apart from the cool sweetened brandy beneath so that you are aware of both and the absinthe neither dominates nor is lost. There is something creamily moreish about it, reminiscent of an Alexander.

(Left) the Blue Blazer; (right) the Green Fairy Sazerac in the upturned cover

Butterfly is a new brand in this country but is made to a 1905 Boston recipe and has a minty quality. We’re actually showcasing it at the Candlelight Club on Saturday 15th January.

My favourites of the evening? The Sazerac, followed by the Blue Blazer followed by the Pickleback. By the time you come to drink it the Blue Blazer is simply an intriguingly-composed hot whisky drink, but the other two make good use of the flavour separation that is a hallmark of molecular mixology. I’d like to taste the Pickleback in a more conventional glass, though.

For more pictures see this set on Flickr.

* I can’t quite establish whether shrubs used either spirits (typically run or brandy) or vinegar, or whether you'd mix vinegar with your booze; sources conflict.

Ham Cam Retrospective: Ham Porn!

If you came to the last Candlelight Club you will probably have tasted Will's Martinez-cure ham. He has sent me some more snaps of the elaborate process of making it. Last time we saw it swimming in the salt cure. After that it was boiled and then roasted.

After boiling

After roasting

Can't help expecting Nigella to ooze into camera at this point

After slicing—and just before being slipped between slices of bread…

“Ham cam” interlude…

A mixture of pork leg, loin and belly

If you’re attending Saturday’s Candlelight Club pop-up cocktail event (and if not, you really should), you’ll know that the food menu will include a ham sandwich made with a homemade juniper-cured ham. Will, our foodmeister, has sent me these photos of the ham beginning its journey to yumminess. You’ll note that he has included not just juniper berries in the cure but also vermouth and Cointreau—so it is not so much a gin-cure as a sort of Martinez-cure. I suggested this to him and he said that it does indeed smell rather like a Martinez at the moment.

In goes the cure

Here are Will’s prelim-inary comments:

Pork, a bit over 3kg in all: 
pork leg (half—home butchered) 
pork loin, pork belly (for variety and curiosity) 


Cure:
1 gallon of water
2 lbs of curing salt: sodium chloride, sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate
¼ lb of dark brown sugar
A handful of bay leaves
A healthy scoop of juniper berries
A small glass of Cointreau 
A shot or two or vermouth (it ended up smelling rather lovely and so I stupidly tried tasting it... not a good idea) 

The secret ingredients of the "Martinez Cure". (I myself
regularly take the Martinez Cure. It hasn't worked yet but
I have every faith in my doctors and will keep trying.)

Method:

The cure was all heated together to steep the herbs and dissolve the salt apart from the alcohol and half the water which went in last to not kill the flavours and to help cool it. The pork all went into a large non-reactive (can't get much less reactive than enamel) pot and, once the cure had cooled to a cool room temperature (specifically my frigid sitting room temperature of 13 degrees), it was poured on top and weighted down with sterilised tiles wrapped in aluminium foil to keep the meat submerged.


The concentrated salt solution both sterilises the meat and draws moisture out of it, effectively “cooking” it.


The Ham Cam will be training its unblinking eye on our supper again, so stay tuned…

Sterilised tiles are used to weight the pig in its briny bath