Bitters Made Easy

The right bitters can take a cocktail from merely drinkable to extraordinary. If you’re a true aficionado, youmay have tried to make them yourself. But it’s not that easy settling on a technique with no prior experience, much less tracking down a supplier of things like gentian root and quassia amargo.

That’s why Erik “Easy” Eastman (below, left) and Dan Oskey (below, right) thought to do all the leg work for you. The first product released by their newly formed company, Easy & Oskey, is a Make Your Own Bitters Kit currently available at South Lyndale Liquors (more retailers forthcoming). We spoke over a few cocktails at The Strip Club in St. Paul, Oskey’s home base, where he’s been perfecting (and Eastman’s been consuming) creative bitters for the last five years.

“When we opened, the question from our customers was ‘what are bitters?’” Oskey recalls. “Since then, that question has evolved to ‘how do I make my own?’” He estimates having honed in on 20 different flavors of bitters for use on Strip Club’s cocktail menu and now all of his trial and error is to your benefit.

Each of their DIY bitters kits comes with a list of approachable, step-by-step instructions that Eastman calls “worth half the cost of the kit on its own.” They also contain a mason jar, filter, funnel, labels, eyedropper bottles and spice packages. You need only supply booze and sugar, and you’ve got ten ounces of professional quality, homemade bitters in a few weeks.