Cocktails with Chocolate bitters
Chocolate bitters are concentrated cocktail bitters flavored with cacao and aromatic botanicals, dashed in to season a drink — cocoa bitters are the same thing under another name.
ABV40%That is high in the bottle, but negligible in the drink, since bitters are used only in dashes.
How it's used
A few dashes add cocoa and bitterness without adding volume. They sit well with aged spirits, coffee and banana, and in stirred drinks like a Negroni or an Old Fashioned.
Substitutes for Chocolate bitters
Another chocolate bitters
Works dash for dash. Bittermens' Xocolatl Mole adds cinnamon and other spices, and Fee Brothers' Aztec Chocolate is only 2.5% ABV.
Aromatic bitters
Without chocolate bitters, Angostura or another aromatic bitters gives the bitterness but not the cocoa.
Chocolate liqueur / crème de cacao
Sweet and weaker than bitters: a barspoon stands in for two dashes and adds sugar as well as cocoa.
Storage
It separates and it settles, and both are normal — the cocoa particles are suspended rather than dissolved. Give the bottle a slow turn before use. Nothing about the flavor changes appreciably with age.
