Scrappy's Orleans Bitters

Scrappy's Orleans Bitters delivers the anise-forward profile essential to New Orleans cocktail tradition, built around a backbone of star anise, citrus peel, and warming cinnamon bark. Developed by Seattle-based Scrappy's Bitters—a small-batch producer founded by bartender Miles Thomas in 2008—this expression recreates the aromatic structure that defined pre-Prohibition Louisiana drinking, the kind of bitters profile bartenders in the French Quarter reached for when building a proper Sazerac or Vieux Carré. Unlike mass-produced substitutes, Scrappy's uses organic ingredients and a grain alcohol base, yielding a clean, full-spectrum extraction that layers licorice, citrus oil, and baking spice without muddiness. Miles Thomas launched Scrappy's in a Seattle kitchen with the goal of giving bartenders bitters formulated around fresh botanicals rather than neutral flavor compounds. The company sources organic roots, barks, and peels, macerates them individually to preserve volatile aromatics, then blends the tinctures to final profile. Orleans Bitters takes its cue from the anise-heavy formulas that shaped New Orleans drinking in the 1800s, when absinthe and Herbsaint were everyday modifiers and aromatic bitters bridged the gap between spirit and botanical liqueur. The result is a bitters that reads as both period-accurate and immediately useful in the modern bar, offering the herbal intensity that rye and cognac cocktails demand. The nose opens with pronounced star anise and a bright citrus note—lemon and bitter orange—before cinnamon and clove emerge on the mid-palate. The finish carries a dry, floral bitterness that keeps the sweetness of a stirred cocktail in check. Use it in the classic New Orleans canon—Sazerac, Vieux Carré, De La Louisiane—but it also anchors whiskey sours, old fashioneds with a cognac split base, and even sparkling aperitifs where anise and citrus can lift the profile without turning cloying. A few dashes temper the richness of aged spirits and add structural complexity to simple two-ingredient builds. Scrappy's Orleans Bitters is available now at Off Premise in Lincoln Park for pickup at 1128 W Armitage Ave, local Chicago delivery, or nationwide shipping.