Angostura Bitters, a medicine created by a German in Venezuela, has become indispensable for pisco sours.

How did the bitter end up being part of the pisco sour? And what does Simon Bolivar, the Prussian physician, and cholera do in this story?

Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert was born in 1796. medical surgeon graduated in Berlinpart of Prussia at that time.

He was at war with his country against Napoleon Bonaparte in the so-called Napoleonic Wars between 1805 and 1815. Venezuelan diplomat Luis Lopez Mendez he looked at this experience as a field medic and recruited him in London.

It is in this part of the story that he appears. Simon Bolivar.

In those years, Venezuela and New Granada, now Colombia, were in full swing. War of Independence against Spain. The idea was that Siegert would share his experience.

So, sent by Mendes, arrived in the city of Angostura, now called Ciudad Bolívar, on August 1, 1819. be done military hospital managers the whole region of Guayana, in the east of Venezuela, by order of the Liberator, as journalist Miro Popik writes in his book Venezuela on the Rocks.

“Over there he became interested in the aromatic and medicinal herbs of the area. And in his search, he created Angostura bitters in 1824,” says the editor, who also specializes in gastronomy and wines.

“It was nothing more than medicine, medicine. It was never created with the intent of being part of a cocktail, much less a culinary ingredient.“, – says Vanessa Rolfini, Venezuelan journalist, expert in the field of gastronomy.

And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the part of the story where cholera appears.

Because it is the aromatic and healing mixture created by Siegert was made to combat gastrointestinal disorders that can produce it diseases and other ailments such as malaria or yellow fever, typical of the tropics.

“Siegert started working with decoctions and invented this drink. The base is made from the bark of a tree called Angostura three leaf or Galipea Kuspariafrom the south coast of the Orinoco, in Venezuela,” says Popik.

A gastronomy expert says that the mixture prepared by the Prussian It was based on gentians and other plant species, in particular sarrapia, the fruit of another endemic Amazon tree that is used today in perfumery and cooking.

Siegert This he soaked everything with cognac and he began selling it in 1824. Even, as Popik reports, he sometimes exported it to Europe in 1855 under the name Siegert’s Bitters.

In July 1857, the commercial name that later became known appeared for the first time: Angostura Bitters.

It was in a notice published by Siegert in Ciudad Bolívar “to avoid counterfeiting my bitter”. In it, he points out that only two people, his agents, are authorized to sell “Dr. Siegert’s real bitters,” and for a “consumer guarantee,” the bottles must have caps with red sealing wax.

Although Siegert commercialized and expanded it, this medicine did not fall from the trees and was not invented by him from scratch.

And that’s when in this story we look back at Berlin and a very famous geographer and naturalist was born there.

“Alexander de Humboldt mentions a mixture of bitters in his writings.in 1804. There are even earlier records of some Catalan priests of the Capuchin order who were on missions on the Orinoco and Caroni rivers, where it is clear that they were already working with the extract CourtX angostura for this purpose,” says Popik.

The capuchins have made a base of Guayana quina cuspa, which is more bitter and less irritating than the original quina that the locals harvested in the area.

“So it was originally a local concoction that Siegert added alcohol to,” says Popik.

Bitters available on the market today, like Angostura, which is still sold under the same label as in 1855, and others, have a more industrial formula that differed from the original in that it “was very thick, very bitter and unpleasant in taste, but very fragrant,” says Popik.

And he says it got appetizing when someone thought of adding it to alcohol and adding some sugar to balance it out.

Who came up with the idea to add a few drops of bitters to the drink?

It is not clear, but Miro Popik points to The English that existed at that time in the British West Indies. and, in particular, Trinidad and Tobago, the islands where Dr. Sigert moved and continued his production when Venezuela gained independence and, after many years of disputes, was left a devastated country.

Popik tells us that “at that time the English, who distilled rum en masse, had not yet aged spirits in wooden barrels, and the taste was very strong, unpleasant and the addition of a few drops of bitterness improved the aromatic perception.”

From low-quality alcoholic beverages that deceive the taste, bitter instantly turned into cocktails. Oldest on record, Old Fashioned, This is one of them.

This drink that Born in the 19th century, it survived its splendor in the 50s of the last century. and revived a few years ago by the character Don Draper on Mad Men, it features bourbon, orange zest, ice, maraschino cherries and sugar, topped off with a few drops of bitters.

It is often said that it was invented in Club Pendennis in Louisville (Kentucky, USA) and that Colonel James E. Pepper, an aristocratic master distiller, brought the recipe to the bar of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, and from there it spread. The dates match when Siegert began exporting his aromatic bitters to England, the Caribbean and the United States, around 1850.

But we have yet to unravel the mystery: how does the bitter get into the pisco sour?

Imagine the picture: early 20th century bar with high ceilings, large lamps, marble floor and piano in the background, elegant people drinking. He The rise of cocktail bars and American-style bars they have been seen from the Savoy Hotel in the United Kingdom to the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

Where the pisco sour is born if in Chile or Peru,This is an eternal dispute that has even reached international courts.

For Vanessa Rolfini, who has lived in Peru for many years, the pisco sour was created there. “In 1916, American Victor Morris of Lima, owner of the Morris Bar, made a version of sour whiskey by mixing pisco with lemon juice, egg white and syrup.”

But according to this version the recipe with bitter had to wait more than 40 years.

“In 1960 Hotel Bolivar in Lima, launches its own formula, this time with a few drops of bitters right on top, at the end of cooking,” explains Rolfini.

In addition to territorial disputes, bitter hits the mark in a pisco sour: “It has the effect of hiding the taste of the egg white and putting a lot of taste buds to work that would otherwise be out of work,” says Rolfini.

Now there are many types and brands of bitters. Some of them are manufactured industrially, but also, as Rolfini tells us, there are “author’s bitters”. And if earlier they were made with herbs, then there are also dried fruits, mushrooms, coffee or cocoa.

“Today it is fully expanded and is part of the new trends in cocktails“, explains Vanessa Rolfini. And even, – says Popik, – this applies to other culinary recipes or ice cream recipes.

“It’s an ingredient that adds depth, and in the case of a cocktail, it makes the spectrum of flavors more complex. This is very important,” says Rolfini. .

We do not know if the tincture created at the time by Dr. Siegert achieved its original goal of eliminating stomach ailments. their patients, but, as Rolfini and Popik tell us, “It is a great precursor and therefore of great historical value.”

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