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By: Mahon McGrath |
K&L Staff Member |
Review Date: 10/26/2010
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I was intrigued to find that the folks at The Bitter Truth had undertaken a version of Jerry Thomas' Decanter Bitters. I say version, because the original recipe, as it was printed back in the nineteenth century, called for only five flavorings, one of which, snakeroot, has since been banned for human consumption by virtue of its toxicity. The guys at the Bitter Truth were also, by their own admission, presuming that the maestro would not have divulged all the ingredients for his famous bitters to the general public and therefore fleshed out or accentuated the basic formula, minus the snakeroot. Being a decanter bitter, this was intended to be drunk by the glass as a "tonic" back in the day. What we're looking at here, with the J.T.'s Own Decanter Bitters, is to my mind more of a dashing affair. The bottles dasher top is the first clue to that, naturally, but if you taste a wee bit of it on its own, as I did, you'll find it a shade too pungent to ever contemplate drinking by the glass. Feel free to prove me wrong.
So, what does it taste like? This is fully bitter, smooth, mellow and dry, with a dominant allspice-clove flavor and subdued orange-tangerine peel accents. It smells much the same, with a undercurrent of vanilla. I want to say it reminds me of an apothecary's shop but I've never been to one. Damn. In an old fashioned it works nicely, but it probably won't edge out your other favorites in a Manhattan. It is distinctive, being both less sweet and less aggressive than many of the other bitters out there and definitely worthy experimenting with.
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