Angostura Sour
A herbal and sour aperitif & bitters cocktail ∙ Dry shake ∙ 5 min ∙ 13.7% ABV ∙
The Angostura Sour is a sour that uses 45 ml of Angostura aromatic bitters as its base instead of a spirit, shaken with lime, sugar and egg white.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake all ingredients with ice: Angostura aromatic bitters 45 mlLime juice 30 mlSugar syrup 15 mlEgg white 15 ml
- Strain back into the shaker
- Dry shake (without ice)
- Fine strain into the chilled glass
- Garnish with an aromatic bitters drop
Tips
- After the shake with ice, strain back into the shaker and dry shake hard without ice for 12-15 seconds; that gives a foam that holds before you fine-strain.
History
The Angostura Sour traces back to a recipe called the Angostura Fizz, also known as the Trinidad Fizz, that spirits writer Charles H. Baker Jr. recorded in his 1939 book The Gentleman's Companion, Volume II, describing it as a stomach remedy from the humid shores of Trinidad. Baker's recipe was unusual for using Angostura bitters as the drink's base rather than as a seasoning.
In 2009, New Orleans bartenders Kirk Estopinal and Maksym Pazuniak, both working at the bar Cure, revived and reworked Baker's formula as the Angostura Sour for their self-published cocktail pamphlet Rogue Cocktails, keeping the bitters-as-base concept while giving it a modern sour treatment. The related Trinidad Sour, which adds rye whiskey and orgeat, appeared around the same time and became the better-known drink built on the same bitters-forward idea.
