Dutch's Bitters
Hat tip to The Boston Shaker, which sold me both Saturday’s channel knife and this variety pack of Dutch’s bitters.
Dutch’s is a New York-based bitters maker that I was previously not familiar with. Their products combine flavors popular in a certain time and place in American history.
For instance, right now I’m sipping a 3:2 Manhattan with a few healthy dashes of the Boomtown bitters. These are meant to evoke gold-rush, frontier towns, with sarsaparilla, oak, mint, and coconut, among other things. The whole thing reminds me of smoke and molasses, and seems to thicken the mouthfeel of the vermouth somehow.
In short, I highly recommend the Boomtown. The Prohi-bitters (ginger, citrus, hibiscus) also smells delicious, although their Colonial line (lavender, juniper, rose) reminds me of somehing they’d pipe into a clothing store to increase sales. I’ll post more as I play with them.