Bitters

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Herbal bitters

 * Angelica root
 * Artichokes
 * Bitter orange
 * Bitter melon
 * Blessed thistle
 * Burdock
 * Cascarilla
 * Centaury
 * Chamomile
 * Cerassee (available at Jamaican stores)
 * Coffee
 * Dandelion
 * Dark Chocolate
 * Devil's claw
 * Eggplant
 * Gentian
 * Ginger
 * Goldenseal
 * Grapefruit
 * Hops
 * Horehound
 * Horseradish (Wasabi)
 * Juniper Berries (in gin)
 * Milk thistle
 * Rhubarb, Rue
 * Wormwood (in vermouth)
 * Yarrow.

Cassia (American/Chinese cinnamon) is listed as a bitter but this website would rather use Ceylon cinnamon.

To see a longer list of bitters, go to http://www.angosturabitters.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitters

Jamaicans regularly use Cerassee for any stomach problems. One woman from Germany said that her father gave her bitters for stomach complaints.

Alcoholic bitters
A bitters is an alcoholic beverage flavored with herbal essences and has a bitter or bittersweet flavor. Numerous brands of bitters were formerly marketed as patent medicines, but are now considered to be digestifs, rather than medicines. They commonly have an alcoholic strength of 45% ABV and are used as digestifs and as flavoring in cocktails. There are some non-alcoholic bitters, but most are alcohol tinctures.

Common Medicinal Uses
Bitters help with anything related to the digestive tract.

Corrects low stomach acid, which will help eliminate candida overgrowth. People with ulcers should see their doctor.

Stimulates digestive juices in mouth, stomach, pancreas, duodenum, and decongests (unglogs) the liver and gallbladder. Aids digestion.

Stimulates the liver: increases bile production; releases bile from the gallbladder. Liver cleanse. This can have an end result of balancing hormones naturally. But people with liver or gallbladder disease (or medical conditions) should only follow doctor orders and not self medicate such as herbal bitters or elixirs. Use common sense: making the bile flow when the ducts are blocked is like flushing a clogged toilet.

Stimulates peristalsis, the contraction of the intestines to vacate waste. Helps clear out intestinal gas and candida overgrowth.

Stimulate the gut wall's self-repair mechanisms. Bitters should be good for leaky gut.

Stimulation the endocrine glands: insulin and glucagon secretions. Diabetics who take insulin must follow doctor care.

Tonify kidneys

Improves appetite. Many chronically ill people have poor appetites. But bitters won't overstimulate (won't create a ravenous appetite).

Mild antidepressants (See Chinese five elements below); but can also eliminate anxiety.

To prevent hangovers: Bitters and soda water right after the binge (before bed)

Cure hiccups

Sleep disorders

Some people claim it caused weight loss.

Contains phytochemicals that can prevent cancer

Externally applied to clear up eczema and lessen scar tissue

Five Elements
In Chinese and Japanese medicine, there are five elements: Water, Fired, Wood, Metal, and Earth. Each element relates to different parts of the body and health. According to the Chinese five elements, bitter relates to the element of fire. Bitter affects the (yin) heart, pericardium, (yang) small intestines, and San Jiao/metabolism. Each element is paired with one of the five senses; fire is paired with tongue/speech. As part of the element of fire, bitters bring happiness and creativity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing

Stop depression (according to the five elements): bitters, anger, and/or extreme exercise. Yes, feed them dark chocolate and other bitters; tell them something that makes the person very angry;

"Fire", represents the energetic, forceful, moving things in the world. Bodily, fire represents our metabolism and body heat, and in the mental and emotional realms, it represents drive and passion. fire can be associated with motivation, desire, intention, and an outgoing spirit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_elements_(Japanese_philosophy)

History of Bitters
Nobody knows when or who first used bitters as medicine. Perhaps it was preserved by Noah (on the ark). Five thousand years ago, the Asians used bitters as health tonics. Romans drank their bitters as a digestive aid before meals. Monks (1600s) brewed bitters as a medicinal cure-all: especially headaches, digestive complaints, and constipation.

Hops is a bitter used for making beer and ale. Pale ale was a term used for beers made from malt dried with coke. Coke had been first used for roasting malt in 1642, but it wasn't until around 1703 that the term pale ale was first used. By 1784, advertisements were appearing in the Calcutta Gazette for "light and excellent" pale ale. By 1830, the expressions bitter and pale ale were synonymous in England where breweries would tend to designate beers as pale ale, though customers in the pub would commonly refer to the same beers as bitter. It is thought that customers used the term bitter to differentiate these pale ales from other less noticeably hopped beers such as porter and mild. By the mid to late 20th century, while brewers were still labelling bottled beers as pale ale, they had begun identifying cask beers as bitter, except those from Burton on Trent, which tend to be referred to as pale ales regardless of the method of dispatch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_(beer)

During the 1800s, Europe and America used bitters to improve digestion. Alcoholic cocktails were created to mask the bitterness of these herbs. Bitters are still common ingredient in alcoholic cocktails. http://www.webtender.com/db/ingred/106

Also during the 1800s, (in Valenzuela) the physician for the armies of Simon Bolivar created Angostura bitters as a cure-all tonic. The company was family run until around 2005. The complete list of ingredients is still a guarded secret, known only by five people, but it is primarily a gentian-based bitters with flavor extracts. The main office is now located in Trinidad, West Indies which is in the Caribbean just north of Haiti and west of Cuba. Peychaud's Bitters, originally created around 1830 by Antoine Amédée Peychaud, a Creole apothecary in New Orleans, is still distributed today by Sazerac. (It's main office is still in New Orleans) It is a gentian-based bitters, comparable to Angostura bitters, but with a lighter body, sweeter taste and more floral aroma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peychaud%27s_Bitters

Patent medicines originated in England, where a patent was granted to Richard Stoughton's Elixir in 1712. There was no federal regulation in the USA concerning safety and effectiveness of drugs until the 1906 Food and Drugs Act. The various medicine salesmen or elixir manufacturers seldom had enough skills in analytical chemistry to analyze the contents nor did they run studies to proof their safety or effectiveness.

All the elixirs fell under the snake oil category. Where did that term come from? In the 1800s, Chinese labourers on railroad gangs involved in building the First Transcontinental Railroad used snake oil for joint pain and shared it with the other (non-Chinese) workers with joint pain. When rubbed on the skin at the painful site, snake oil was claimed to bring relief. This claim was ridiculed by rival medicine salesmen, and in time, snake oil became a generic name for many compounds marketed as panaceas or miraculous remedies whose ingredients were usually secret, unidentified, or mis-characterized and mostly inert or ineffective. Bitter is one of the five taste senses in the tongue, so anybody can taste a plant to see if it is bitter. The bogus medicine man could throw a bunch of herbs into alcohol and call it an elixir. But poisonous plants are also bitter. So what happened to bitters? Nothing. Like all foods, bitters are under the supervision of the FDA. Reputable bitter distillations continue even until this day. Bitters never disappeared. Despite being 45%  alcohol, bitters were legal and easily obtained during prohibition. They are still around. To this day, many people take bitters as a pre or post meal digestive aid. It is a shame that the general public is unaware of this time tested, proclaimed by many as a botanical miracle elixir.

Read the bitters label
Sulphur bitters label: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1930&dat=18801023&id=ZxUgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZmYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1845,3990231

Swedish bitters label: http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/swedish.html

Lincoln bitters label: http://www.bottlepickers.com/lic_AD.jpg

Lincoln bitters bottle: http://www.bottlepickers.com/lincoln_bitters.JPG

Black Gin label: http://www.bottlepickers.com/black_gin_8.jpg

Dr. Johnson's bitters label: http://www.bottlepickers.com/Johnson_ad1.jpg

Mandrake Bitters label: http://www.bottlepickers.com/baxter_add.jpg

Lash's Bitters label: http://www.bottlepickers.com/lashcard.jpg

Wild Cherry Bitters label: http://www.bottlepickers.com/harter%20label.jpg

26blue.com is a non-commercial website. But we have found that everything from Gaia is great. Plus they list their bitter ingredients. They have two bitters one alcohol and one is alcohol free: http://www.gaiaherbs.com/products/detail/375/Sweetish-Bitters-Elixir- and   http://www.gaiaherbs.com/products/detail/692/Daily-Bitters-Alcohol-free

If you want to buy bitters...go to a liquor store or search on Amazon dot com.

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