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Looked Into
The U.S.'s Bygone Angostura Autarky
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Angostura Bitters, Jonathan Taylor, Talk of the Town
Jonathan Taylor writes:
Edge of the American West has helped us catch up with the Angostura Bitters shortage of 2009–10, since we've been taking a bit of a break from the cocktail-shaking scene.
If only Angostura, now a division of Bacardi, were still manufacturing its concentrate for U.S. distribution in Jersey City, as it was at the time of a 1934 Talk piece about the secret recipe, protected by the evasive wiles of the then custodian, Alfredo Galo Siegert:
It takes eight months to make Angostura Bitters. "After the first four months, we do different things for the next four months," Mr. Siegert told us in a burst of confidence.
But you don't need fancy bitters to make an authentically pre-Prohibition mixed drink. The 1910 Siegert-sponsored Complete Mixing Guide at my elbow contains numerous recipes using the bitters, but also a ton of others, mostly with this rough structure:
WHITE PLUSH
Use whiskey glass.Allow customer to help himself to bourbon or rye whiskey, then fill glass with milk.
Here's to Monday! For more on alcohol in The New Yorker, see this New Year's entry in the Back Issues blog.
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Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)
The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Proposal: a better-designed Metrocard (for A Brief Message)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Micro-essay: on saving time through inspiration (for A Brief Message)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
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