Boker's style bitters

Part of the legendary nature of these bitters is due to their being the only bitters specified in what is regarded as the world's first cocktail book, Jerry Thomas' 1862 The Bar-Tender's Guide. Or at least, these are believed to be the bitters Jerry Thomas is referring to. The complication is that he specifies "Bogart's bitters" in the book rather than Boker's Bitters. However, there wasn't a Bogart's brand of bitters at the time, whereas Boker's was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, so it is presumed that this is a mistake and he actually meant Boker's Bitters. This presumed manuscript error was not repeated just once but six times, with four of those recipes appearing on the double-page spread (below). However, in his second 1887 edition, Bogart's is replaced with Boker's Bitters.

The Bar-Tender's Guide 1862

One of the six recipes, the Brandy Champerelle, which he describes as "a delicious French café drink", is a three-equal-parts cocktail to challenge the modern-day Trinidad Sour, with a whopping one-third Bogart's Bitters.

Brandy Champerelle - The Bar-Tender's Guide 1862

Fittingly, one of the modern-day producers to revive these bitters, The Bitter Truth, chose to honour Jerry Thomas by naming their interpretation "Bogart's Bitters" rather than "Boker's Bitters".

While Jerry Thomas may have meant Boker's rather than Bogart's, there is no doubt over Boker's Bitters being specified by name in the first known recipe named Dry Martini which appeared in the second edition of Harry Johnson's Bartender Manual (published 1888).

Harry Johnson's 1888 Bartender Manual

Boker's was one of, if not the leading brand of aromatic bitters until The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited such bitters using unprovable cure-all medical claims as part of their marketing in the USA. Prior to this, medicinal sales of aromatic bitters were huge, while their use in cocktails accounted for comparatively small volumes. However, this was the golden age of cocktails, so there was still a bright future for Boker's Bitters. That was until Prohibition hit America, forcing the eventual closure of the Boker's company in the 1920s.

The American Bar Tender 1884

Bottle shape

The folk at The Bitter Truth not only strived to match the liquid they sampled from an original Boker's bottle, but also to recreate the historic, shapely brown glass bottle, known as a Lady Leg bottle.

Flavour

Although the few surviving bottles, which a lucky few have tasted, will have deteriorated with age and oxygen exposure, it is accepted that Boker's Bitters tasted of chocolate, coffee and dark spice, with known ingredients including cassia, cardamom and bitter orange peel. Modern-day interpretations, such as Bogart's and our own Difford's Bokers Bitters, also lean on liquorice.