Bitters

Originally, numerous longstanding brands of bitters were developed as patent medicines, but now are sold as digestifs, sometimes with herbal properties, and as cocktail flavorings.

[1] The botanical ingredients used historically in preparing bitters have consisted of aromatic herbs, bark, roots, and/or fruit for their flavor and medicinal properties.

[3] This practice was further developed during the Middle Ages, when the availability of distilled alcohol coincided with a renaissance in pharmacognosy,[4] which made possible more-concentrated herbal bitters and tonic preparations.

Many of the brands and styles of digestive bitters today reflect herbal stomachic and tonic preparations whose roots are claimed to be traceable back to Renaissance era pharmacopoeia and traditions.

By the nineteenth century, the British practice of adding herbal bitters (used as preventive medicines) to Canary wine had become immensely popular in the former American colonies.

[5] By 1806, American publications referenced the popularity of a new preparation, termed cocktail, which was described as a combination of "a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters".

Pioneering mixologist Jerry Thomas was largely responsible for an increase in the popularity of bitters in the United States when he released How to Mix Drinks or The Bon-Vivant's Companion in 1862.