How Angostura Has Maintained the Best Kept Secret in Cocktails for 200 Years

Two centuries is a long time to keep a secret.

The House of Angostura, the producer of Angostura bitters, has managed to do just that. The brand recently celebrated its 200th anniversary in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. To this day, the ingredients used to craft its flagship product are largely unknown.

Angostura aromatic bitters is one of the world’s most ubiquitous bartending products. Company representatives claim that its bitters are exported to 170 countries and command an 85% market share, impressive for a relatively niche product.

“Even crappy bars that I worked in before the cocktail revolution always had a bottle of Angostura bitters behind the bar,” says longtime bartender Leandro DiMonriva. He’s also one of the proprietors of Standard Bitters and the host of The Educated Barfly.

Related: How to Use Bitters to Take Your Cocktail Game to the Next Level

The company understands the status that its bitters hold in the bar world. “They’ve fought vociferously to maintain their trademark,” says Matt Pietrek, co-author of the book Modern Caribbean Rum. “From the oversized label to the secret recipe, it all attracts attention.”

Despite its widespread use in cocktails that range from Old Fashioneds to Tiki mainstays like the Zombie, what Angostura bitters are made of is a mystery. Other than the obvious ingredients of alcohol, water, and sugar, the only botanical ingredients listed on the label are gentian and “natural flavors.” The rest is conjecture.

What “natural flavors” consist of is anyone’s guess, but some assumptions can be made. Although the producers won’t confirm any ingredients, common botanicals like orange peel, quinine, cinnamon, and cassia are believed to be included in the formula.

For the brand’s 200th anniversary, it released a new bottle of commemorative bitters. “The difference on this one, though, is that we were open about what’s different. So we did mention some of the ingredients [on the label],” says Angostura’s chairman, Terrence Bharath.

The 200th-anniversary bitters have a less spicy and more bitter profile than the famed original. The different ingredients listed are aged rum, angelica root, nutmeg, and Roman wormwood. You may conclude that these ingredients are not present in its aromatic bitters, but beyond that, there’s little understanding of what’s actually in that yellow-capped bottle.

How to keep a secret for two centuries

The degree of secrecy and subterfuge deployed by Angostura to protect its recipe feels like something from a Cold War spy thriller.

On the Angostura campus, there’s a secure room with a large industrial grinder and large tanks that bear the iconic oversized label design. This is where the bitters are made. Photography in this room is forbidden.

The recipe is known to just five anonymous employees known as manufacturers. Even those who sit on Angostura’s board are kept in the dark.

“I know very little about how it’s all managed because it’s managed with deep secrecy,” says Bharath. “There are very few people on the compound who have the ability to make what we call ‘the concoction.’”

The five manufacturers are not allowed to fly on the same plane or travel in the same vehicles.  Even when they combine the botanicals to make the bitters, the manufacturers work one at a time from a secure, windowless room that overlooks the main production area.

“The manufacturers make sure that everything’s correct, and they send it through there to be ground up and then infused,” says Pietrek. “Basically, by the time it comes down that chute, once it’s pulverized, it would be impossible to figure out exactly what each kind of component is.”

In a deal made with the customs office of Trinidad and Tobago, all imported botanicals are given a numerical code that changes, so that anyone who sneaks a peek at the books will remain clueless. The distillery also allegedly imports many botanicals that aren’t used in the production of its bitters, just to throw off potential spies.

Is the mystery necessary?

Even if someone was to discover the botanicals used to make Angostura bitters, would it be possible to duplicate the original?

There are many variables when crafting bitters. The flavor is not determined solely by the list of botanical ingredients. The distilled spirit in which the botanicals are steeped, the water used to dilute the mixture, and even environmental factors like temperature and humidity can affect the flavor and intensity of the final product.

Additionally, botanicals sourced from different places can contribute varying flavors to the finished product. “Even if you had all of the exact ingredients, but you didn’t know their ratios, you could misstep in any number of a million different ways,” says DiMonriva.

Part of Angostura’s production facility has been converted into a museum that displays artifacts from the brand’s history. Perhaps the most unique and interesting section of the museum is a display case full of counterfeit bottles of Angostura sourced from as far away as Mexico, the Netherlands, and Poland.

“We have a museum for a reason,” says Ian Forbes, the company’s chief operating officer. “In that museum, you will see historically since bitters became something of interest, many copies have been made.”

The brand has been the target of repeated and egregious trademark infringement. “Just this week, one of the directors brought to my attention a product that is passing itself off as our bitters. It has a yellow cap and an oversized label,” says Forbes.

In the current landscape of massive multinational beverage companies, Angostura is a publicly traded company from a small Caribbean nation that produces one of the world’s most iconic bartending products. Without some protection, Angostura bitters could easily be overtaken in a competitive and uncertain market.

The idiosyncratic packaging and secret recipe contribute to the brand’s mystique and status as an industry icon.

“I think that mystery is important, and I think the secrecy surrounding it is important,” says Bharath. “I believe it’s what makes us unique, and I think we will continue that way. There’s no reason for us to release the formula.”

Will Angostura be able to maintain this mystique for 200 more years? Only time will tell. For now, the secret’s safe in Port of Spain.

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