Your Favorite Bourbon Cocktail Could Use A Boost From Chocolate Bitters

Bitters have been around even longer than the word "cocktail," the term for mixed drinks that originated in the early 1800s. A cocktail initially referred to a libation that included bitters among its ingredients, but it wasn't until the cocktail revival of the early 2000s that we saw an explosion of new bitters flavors, including chocolate bitters. Chocolate bitters are typically made using bitter cocoa nibs and a variety of spices. While you may be scratching your head as to what cocktails work with chocolate bitters, if you're someone who enjoys bourbon-based drinks like a Manhattan or old fashioned, you're in luck.

Chocolate bitters aren't going to turn your favorite cocktail into a sweet dessert drink. If you ever mistook baking chocolate in your parent's pantry for a candy bar, you'll know that chocolate on its own can be very bitter indeed. Chocolate bitters add an earthy nuttiness and a touch of bitterness with a cocoa finish to a cocktail. A few dashes can give your bourbon-based cocktail a boost, pairing well with aged liquors like bourbon by balancing its sweetness and harmonizing with the flavor notes it carries, like vanilla and caramel.

Stirred cocktails like the old fashioned, Manhattan, or Boulevardier can be enlivened with the addition of chocolate bitters, which can stand up to the other bold flavors in these classics. Start with our old-fashioned cocktail recipe and simply swap out the bitters with the chocolate variety for a new twist on an old standby. The left hand cocktail — a variation on the Boulevardier by New York City bartender Sam Ross — adds chocolate bitters to the mix of bourbon, Campari, and sweet vermouth for a more nuanced take on this Prohibition-era cocktail.

While chocolate bitters work well with stirred cocktails, they can also be used in shaken ones. Shaken cocktails often include citrus, which at first blush may seem like it would clash with chocolate, but there's a history of pairing these two ingredients in desserts, like orange zest in chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate balances out the acidity in citrus fruits. Chocolate bitters in a citrus-based bourbon cocktail add depth of flavor and help balance the varying taste profiles of the ingredients. For instance, the addition of chocolate bitters in the Kentucky chocolate — a take on the whisky sour by the YouTube channel "Common Man Cocktails" — adds a rich chocolate note to this silky smooth cocktail made with bourbon and sour mix. Get your hands on some chocolate bitters and you may just discover they bring out the mixologist in you.