DIY Bitters: Reviving the Forgotten Flavor - A Guide to Making Your Own Bitters for Bartenders, Cocktail Enthusiasts, Herbalists, and More

I have purchased, read and tried out:...Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, Brad Parsons...Handcrafted Bitters, Will Budiaman...The Cocktail Lab, Tony Conigliaro...Making Tinctures: Beyond the Folklore Method, Thyme WisperBy a longshot, this is the best, and most detailed.Parsons - Amazing as a history lesson, and a good reference if you want to dabble. I disliked the amount of coverage on commercial bitters & cocktail recipes (I want to make my own, not read about what's available in stores and there are already thousands of web pages I can look to for recipes). I'm also much happier with the tincture method, as opposed to the 1 jar method of steeping all ingredients at the same time.Budiaman - This is a great supplement to DIY Bitters. It's gives lots of ideas of experiments, and I like the novel approach of grouping by the seasons. I disliked the mixing of Tincture and 1 Jar methods - I wish he would have stuck with the Tincture method throughout, so I didn't have to reverse engineer the recipes. Not strong enough on science or method to stand on it's own if you're really wanting to get into making bitters.Conigliaro - really interesting and novel ideas, but out of reach of most people. A rotovap, homogenizer thermomix and several other high priced pieces of equipment that simply won't be in most people's homes. Food grade essential oils and essences - if you have a rotovap why are you buying essential oils and essences? This books falls into the "because it's possible" realm, and while you do end up with several very yummy drinks, it's not the book most people will be looking for (get Liquid Intelligence instead - much more useful while still being full on geek-worthy).Wisper - simply not enough information to be useful. The method for organizing and labeling is awesome, and inspired me to be much more methodical, but the recipes and links to useful information are lacking (DIY Bitters is the book this one wanted to be).Now what's awesome about this book - basically everything.You get a nice lesson into a fairly extensive list of plants that make bitters, with detailed descriptions along with some folklore and history. The method of extraction is detailed and precise. The recipes are nice starting points, and the author invites you to experiment - Budiaman's books does this masterfully, and when read together these are a perfect pairing.Buy this book.

I really love this book and am excited to start making my own bitters and extractions. The book is very informative and explains the why and how of extraction. It has helpful pictures, describes mouthfeels, tastes, and so many other things you never thought about while tasting.I also love the combination of medicinal tinctures as well as bitters to make better cocktails. Sometimes they can be both! I’m especially excited to make their digestive bitters, as it would be more cost effective to make them than to keep buying Urban Moonshine’s, which introduced me to bitters in the first place.There is one thing I wish I considered, but it’s not enough to dock a star because the book is such a great resource. The one thing is the start up cost! If you’re brand new like I am, you’ll need to buy all the herbs, alcohol, and jars to even begin. For example, if you decide to make their Chamomile bitters, the total cost is about $120. Total cost of herbs is ~$35, total cost of alcohol is ~$78, and if you need to get jars, that’s another $12. Granted, you’ll make a large amount of each herbal tincture that’ll can be used in multiple recipes. Each herb has different extracting times and needs different strengths of alcohol, so you either need to buy each one or just get Everclear and dilute it to the right amount. I wouldn’t not buy the book based on this factor, just note you might need some time to get everything before starting.

I really appreciate not only the recipes in this book in how to make one's own bitters, but also recipes for how to use them, and they why different herbs are used for different kinds of maladies for different bitter blends. It's an incredibly well laid out, accurate, and user firendly resource that I'll be sure to have on hand for a very long time.

This is a really great book written by the founders of Urban Moonshine. It gives a bit of history of bitters and why they were/are used. The book covers everything for the beginner - from what sort of equipment is needed, the herbs/spices used, to where you can get supplies. It goes over the properties of the bitter herbs and how they can be used. Clear and easy to understand all the way through your first batch. There are also many interesting recipes included for interesting drinks and uses for bitters. Bitters are very beneficial, especially with so many people rushing through life and not having the time to take proper care to make sure we are eating proper and balanced food. If you're making your first attempt at creating your own bitters, this book covers all you need to get started and you shouldn't be disappointed

It's hard to tell from the 'look inside!' photos, but the body text isn't a standard serif/sans-serif font, but one that is slightly artistic. The book is hard to read because of the font choice for body text, which uses uneven strokes on letters.Also, as another reviewer noted, the editing on this is questionable - there's a recipe that needs hazelnut tincture, but no recipe for hazelnut tincture.

I may buy the actual book which presumably has page numbers - this is a Kindle fail obviously but trying to find the recipe for grapefruit bitters when you only have location numbers and the index only shows page numbers is impossible. I’m almost positive this book has many recipes for tincturing the various bitter herbs and for concocting bitters mixes from them if only I could find them without having to visit every sgffhgf location in the book.

This is an excellent companion volume to the book Bitters by Brad Parsons. The information compliments but doesn't duplicate. If you're interested in bitters,you need both books. If you're interested in the art of mixology Fundamentals of Mixology is an important book as well!

Excellent! very informative and good to practise the recipes...

This book is a good start for DYI bitters. This was my first book of a few to learn about bitter, but what I love the most is that Urban Moonshine know their herbs, grow them, love them. And I follow UM in every social media platform!

Recipes were a bit too complicated for me, but still a great addition to your bar library.

Estupendo , un gran libro para parender mucho más acerca de bitters , queda recomendado .El producto llegó en un estado perfecto y antes de la fecha prevista. Todo genial

Really liked the information about growing the botanicals