There’s an alluring mystique to cocktails. Whether it’s the Prohibition era lore surrounding drinks like the Bootleg or the dimly-lit environs in which they are often enjoyed, a sense of mystery is commonly associated with the style of beverage. Then, there’s the cocktail creation process itself: Throw ingredients into a metal tin, shake or stir, and an unexpected synergy of flavors emerges.
Sometimes, the results surprise and impress, but other times, the taste of the drink is a little off. And most often, the imbalance that frustrates drinkers is excess sweetness. Sugar covers boozy flavors, hence why cheap happy hours often rely on excessively saccharine cocktails. Plus, with less bartending experience, it’s all too easy to make sugar stand out more than the other elements involved. So say you just crafted a homemade take on a boozy sling, and it’s sickly sweet — don’t worry, there’s an easy fix.
You’ll want to target the flavors that contrast sugar, which means reaching for bitters. The former is especially useful whenever your cocktail doesn’t employ naturally bitter ingredients. Instead of reworking the sugar-tart balance, you’ll only need to add a couple dashes of bitters, thereby elevating complexity and cutting down the sweetness. And in certain drinks like sours, you won’t even need to reshake — simply garnish the bitters on top.
Bitters are a simple solution for balancing sweetness
Cocktails typically rely on the balance of four central characteristics: The dominant boozy element, sweetness, as well as tart and bitter flavors. Although too much can be overwhelming, the sugar component is essential for several reasons. Most obviously, it’s delicious — a balanced amount of sweetener delivers immediate pleasure, which makes sipping a drink enjoyable, eliminating grimaces from sharp flavors. Furthermore, sugar is also critical to a drink’s texture, lending a pleasurable mouthfeel. So when you cut the element out, your drink doesn’t just dry out — it falls apart completely.
That’s where knowing how to use bitters comes in. Rather than eliminating the sugar, a well-constructed cocktail takes the sweetener off of center stage. Just a couple of dashes of bitters — about one milliliter each, totaling to just shy of half a teaspoon — harmonizes cocktail ingredients, thereby inspiring balance. Best of all, bitters encompass a wide array of flavors, incorporating many different botanicals, spices, and other sharp-tasting notes. So, by using them to tame excess sweetness, you’re also expanding the cocktail’s flavor profile into a more seasoned direction.
In addition to bitters, you can also turn to citrus to contrast a sweet drink. For instance, lemon readily balances overly sweet drinks, especially if you already used some in the recipe, so just squeeze out some more juice. Just remember it’s easy to overdo it with acidity, so for the most reliable solution, it’s best to turn towards bitters first.
