grapefruit bitters

While collecting bitters recipes from across the web, I found several for grapefruit bitters. Instead of following one recipe, I made a hybrid of the two I liked the best. One was from John Paul Deragon and the other from Chuck Taggart. With the Deragon recipe, I was intrigued by his flavoring with lavender in addition to other herbs such as gentian and spearmint, the latter of which was abundantly growing in my garden. With the Taggart recipe, I used his heavy-on-the-pith and bitterness focus on the grapefruit in addition to his use of corriander for an extra bite. My recipe based on these sources was the following:

Grapefruit Bitters
• 16 oz Bacardi 151 Rum
• 3 oz Water
• 160 g Grapefruit Rind (one rind with pith)
• 20 g Grapefruit Zest (zest of one grapefruit)
• 12 g Fresh Ginger (diced)
• 4 g Fresh Spearmint
• 10 g Dried Lavender
• 2 g Coriander Seed
Let steep for 10 days and filter. Extract the absorbed liquid from grapefruit pith using back of spoon and pressure, and filter.
• 5 tsp Sugar
Heat in a pot on a medium flame until the sugar is melted and is a light to medium brown, then add
• 3 tsp Water
Add to filtered liquid, mix, and bottle.

The end product was rather strong on the lavender although Andrea enjoyed that aspect more than I did. Perhaps halving the lavender next time would fit my tastes better. Here is one drink I made that seemed to work well with the flavors in these bitters:

RinQuinQuin Martini
• 2 oz Plymouth Gin
• 1/4 oz RinQuinQuin
• 1/4 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
• 3 dashes Grapefruit Bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass

RinQuinQuin is a French quinine-containing aromatized wine flavored with peach leaf, skin, and kernel (instead of the fruit itself). Read more about it in the Bunnyhugs blog which is where I got the idea for this drink (I was inspired by their RinQuinQuin Versper). The peach and grapefruit flavors in this recipe complement each other quite nicely.