La Maison Fontaine® Blanche

We love spicy foods here at Bittermens. In fact, habaneros appear in everything from cream sauces to omelets at home. However, we have found that when people try to make spicy cocktails, much of the time the flavor falls short.

The problem as we see it isn’t the heat – it’s how the heat is incorporated into the cocktail. Infusing jalapeño peppers into tequila is perfect if you want a tequila drink. However, simply putting commercial hot sauces, sambal or sriracha into a cocktail usually throws off the cocktail’s balance.

The way that most hot sauces are made is by blending peppers with vinegar, salt and other spices. Vinegar, eh? That sure sounds like a shrub to us. Shrubs are classically refreshing fruit and vinegar-based syrups that were sweetened and diluted to make a beverage since revolutionary times. Instead of making a berry shrub or an orange shrub, why not make a hot pepper shrub?

We’ve fortified the shrub with alcohol (to better extract the flavors from the spices) and made it much more concentrated, so you only need to use drops instead of ounces to get the desired effect… which, in this case, is a good ol’ bit of heat.

Scarborough is a unique flavor blend, focusing on botanicals traditionally found in more culinary applications but are now working their way into the cocktail world.

We love savory drinks – it doesn’t matter if we’re sipping on an aquavit giMLet, a tequila old fashioned, a sherry cobbler, or just a vermouth on the rocks, it’s the perfect foil to sweet or citrusy drinks during the summer.

The Scarborough Bitters were born out of our love of savory drinks, especially drinks with vermouth. What we figured out years ago is that when you take all of the bells and whistles out of dry vermouth, the core flavors are pretty darned close to Herbes de Provence.

Thanks to Simon and Garfunkel, we also know that if you’re heading to Scarborough Fair, there’s going to be some parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme involved. Well, rosemary and thyme are already in most Herbes de Provence blends – and the woodsy sage notes and bright-yet-bitter parsley meshes with them perfectly. To this, we add a little cinchona bark for classic bitterness as well as tartaric acid, the acid found in wine.

How do you use these bitters? Lots of ways!

Verde Mary: green tomato and tomatillo juice, tequila (or vodka) and the Scarborough bitters.

Tailored Canadian Tuxedo: 1.5 oz Canadian Club, 1 oz Amontillado Sherry, 1/4 oz Demarara Syrup, 7 drops Scarborough Bitters, Lemon Twist. (Thomas Thompson, Barrel Proof, New Orleans)

Rosé Spritz: Dry Rose, soda water, 10 drops of Scarborough Bitters, on the rocks in a large wine glass, rosemary garnish.

Improved Bamboo: 1.5 oz Amontillado Sherry, 1.5 oz Dry Vermouth, 10 drops Bittermens Orange Cream Citrate, 5 drops of Scarborough Bitters, lemon twist. Stirred and served in a coupe.

It’s also amazing in a glass of ice water or soda water for a non-alcoholic refresher, and it really wakes up a gin and tonic!