Seasoning the Season… The Bitters Renaissance Continues This Christmas!

New Cocktail Bitters Bar Pack collection from The Bitter Truth celebrates a decade of bringing the best bitters to intrepid travellers and home bar enthusiasts all over the country.

The Bitter Truth are delighted to present the Cocktail Bitters Bar Pack - a new range of award-winning bitters to impress your guests during this Christmas party season. The Bar Pack is the perfect stocking-filler for serious drinks aficionados: Five carefully-selected flavours designed to spruce up cocktails, gin and tonics and soft drinks during those cold winter nights.

Bitters are like seasoning for cocktails - and The Bar Pack doubles up as a spice rack for your bar. Just adding a dash of bitters to your favourite drink can take it to the next level.

For ten years, the famous Traveler’s Set from the Bitter Truth has been stashed in the hand luggage of discerning world citizens. Five small, but perfectly-formed 20ml bottles in a variety of natural flavours, in a beautifully embossed tin with a recipe card to provide inspiration and help make that business class Bloody Mary hit the high notes at 35,000 feet.

Now the Cocktail Bitters Bar Pack brings five new flavours to the party: tonic, cucumber, peach, chocolate and - for the first time ever - olive. Simply mix 60ml of gin or vodka, 15ml of dry Vermouth and two to three dashes of olive bitters. Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass for a truly memorable Dirty Martini.

The innovators behind The Bitter Truth have long known that the future of bitters is dug deep in the past.

In the United States, bitters were an essential ingredient of cocktails, defining the decadence of high society in the early twentieth century. Following Prohibition, most bitters disappeared from drinks menus, only to be revived in the 2000s by The Bitter Truth. Going back even further, bitters were used mainly as cure-all medicines. The sailors in the British Royal Navy used them to mix their restorative pink gin – their panacea after another tough day at sea.

The Bitter Truth have dedicated their careers to resurrecting this wonderful, versatile ingredient and reinventing it for modern tastes.

They use only natural botanicals, fruit and aromatic herbs to prepare their bitters, replacing the need to add fresh fruit or vegetables to cocktails. They also use alcohol rather than glycerine as a natural preservative which creates a higher ABV and means you need to use less of the product to achieve an intense flavour.

One significant benefit in Christmas party season is that the flavours in The Bar Pack provide a sophisticated soft drink option for all those designated drivers. Adding just a few dashes of bitters to soft drinks can really elevate a simple soda water or tonic into something special - and, importantly, it replaces the need to resort to litres of sugary cola or lemonade!

Although perfect for a stocking-filler or Secret Santa gift, The Bar Pack is far from a novelty item.

The Bitter Truth are the bitters provider of choice for the 5-Star hotel industry in the UK, supplying the Dorchester, the Ritz and the Savoy among many others. They are a vital component in the bartenders’ repertoire and are used across the country to make fine cocktails in the most prestigious establishments.

“Considering the important part they have played in the history of the cocktail, it is surprising how little people know about bitters,” said Kirsty Loveday from The Bitter Truth. “In particular, with the gin revolution we are seeing, they open up a whole host of new possibilities. You can take a standard G+T, add a dash of bitters and turn it into something amazing. The Bar Pack is a great introduction for those discovering bitters for the first time - as well as being the perfect gift for the home bar enthusiast in your life.”

The Cocktail Bitters Bar Pack from The Bitter Truth is available from specialist retailers or online via Amazon.

The Bitter Truth – for better drinks!