Please, for the love of all things sacred in this universe, don’t order a cocktail and ask for extra sugar syrup. The finesse of a great cocktail comes from an almost intuitive balance of flavours, something that India hasn’t quite come to terms with yet. The craft is one that dates back to a pre-Civil War New Orleans apothecary, where Antoine Amedie Peychaud treated friends and family with homemade brandy toddies spiked with a tonic from a family recipe which was later to become the iconic, Peychaud’s Bitters. By the late 1800’s these drinks were so popular they became the first branded cocktail, The Sazerac, and it began an unstoppable alcoholic journey.
Til date, bitters are integral part of most Old Fashioned cocktails (pun completely intended), but really, outside of the mixology-bartending-alcoholic fold, very few people understand what they are or how to use them. They began as medicinal tonics, botanicals steeped in high-proof alcohols and then added in small doses to a glass of whatever made them most drinkable but today they’ve become one of the most powerful tools in the mixologist’s arsenal.
Among the Indian audience they’re still fairly new, but for Valentine Barboza, they’ve always been front and centre. He started his career behind the bar at Mumbai’s Oberoi Hotel and then went on to train in London, Oman, Dubai, Canada and Cuba before returning home and kickstarting his own range of homemade bitters, eponymously named Valentino’s Bitters. It was during his training in Havana that he and his colleagues first started to experiment with the possibilities of creating and using bitters.“We were making garbage though,” he laughingly admits, but in the time since, he’s honed his skill down to fine art.
The process of making bitters is a test of patience. Herbs, roots, fruit and other botanicals have to be dried – “Preferably sun-dried, though most big companies don’t bother with that. I sun-dry my oranges but US companies use concentrate with glycerin” he adds. There can be around 33 ingredients for any given bitter. They’re then added to a high-proof alcohol - Valentine favours Everclear (76% - 95% a.b.v) - and after they’ve steeped, they’re strained into bottles and packaged, the whole process can take between 15-20 days per bottle.
When it comes to flavours, the possibilities are endless, think of yourself as a mad scientist, mixing and sampling till you hit upon the perfect combination. Valentine went through dozens of trials but settled on a selection of enticing flavours such as Keylime, Pink grapefruit and Pecan coffee. Since his bitters aren’t commercially available in India (you can thank our rigid excise laws) he tends to play more towards the European palate - where they’re popularly sold - with milder and more aromatic base. He does, however, note that India’s wealth of spices makes for more diverse opportunities, herbs like Aswaghanda (Ginseng) and Brahmi grow in the wild which offers a selection unheard of in the West. However, working with botanicals can be a risky business, they have to be certified as edible before any are used.
Valentine does note that it’s probably not worth selling his products here in India, since so few people know how to utilise them. “In India, anyone who can use a shaker is called a bartender, but they have no idea how to make even the simplest cocktails. The classics have no space in this market, people want fruity drinks with lots of sugar. It’s not only on the customers, even the bar owners are uninformed,” he says.
Today, India is gradually becoming more aware of its alcohol – that there are untapped avenues still waiting to be explored and most bars are adapting to the revolution but there’s a long way still to go. Valentine’s bitters are just another aspect of the burgeoning awareness about quality cocktails and with luck, people will discover that cocktails can be so much more than a muddled mixture of lime and ice, but a truly curated experience.
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