I know this is a bit of an odd question, particularly as I’m sure you clean-living people wouldn’t have personal experience of such things but…
As a result of an unusual set of circumstances, we have ended up with quite a few bottles of spirits that we don’t normally drink (OH has the occasional G&T but that’s about it). I have a book of cocktail recipes and have quite enjoyed them in the past and thought it might be fun to experiment but many of the recipes using the spirits we have need the addition of bizarre flavourings. We have inherited a bottle of Angostura bitters so can play with those recipes but am really puzzled as to where to get some of the other additional bits e.g. Orange bitters or the UK version of Grenadine (which is alcoholic).
The local supermarkets stock lots of spirits but not those bits so I was wondering if anyone had spotted such things anywhere? I don’t like Amazon but even if I did use them the delivery charges are massive - presumably imported from the UK or somewhere like that.
Use Amazon.fr instead of Amazon.co.uk and you won’t be hit with massive delivery charges.
Loads of different bitters to try, orange, cherry, chocolate etc.
Thanks Colin but it was Amazon.fr I was looking at The orange bitters in particular seems to have delivery charges on - I wonder if they aren’t popular here…
The left of the page gives the option to filter, seller, price, delivery…etc.
I normally chose Amazon.? Usually free postage and cheaper if from other countries.
On Amazon .fr I have the Prime option at the top in the place where the Free option is in the UK - I’d never used it before but can see it would be handy. Thank you!
Thanks @graham - I didn’t know about that. Obviously not terribly observant but will use it in future!
@Mat_Davies - there are site with lists of recipes with particular ingredients but usually only indexing one of them. Donkey’s years ago I started a database of (food) recipes for my own use which did exactly what you are describing for cocktails. If only I’d stuck with that instead of starting a business …
Our superU stocks San Bitters (orange), and the cave next door has a wide range of alcoholic things like a crème de grenadine (non-alcoholic grenadine is in the supermarket). You need to ferret about on the lower shelves! Cocktails are very popular so a good generalist cave in a reasonable sized place should stock stuff (ie not one just for a single vineyard)
Or there are other online retailers that do mixes for cocktails (just add alcohol) like this
I love my local SuperU but it is very small and didn’t seem to have any bitters (I take it San Bitters were in the spirits/aperitifs section?) I couldn’t find anything in the *(bigger) Intermarche or (bigger again) Casino. Perhaps the Normandy locals don’t drink cocktails! The older ones do tend to put a shot of Calvados in their breakfast coffee though… There is a cave in our nearest town but it’s very intimidating. I must be more courageous in tackling new places - my teachers say my French is good but it goes to pieces in new situations
When we can travel a bit more widely, I’ll give Avranches a go. Thank you for your ideas - much appreciated
Well there’s a challenge for you! … perhaps go and ask at the accueil of your superU to start with? The brands our one stocks are Vennezzio bitters and Sans bitters. They also have Aperol which is very popular here, but it comes in big bottles and is alcoholic. So you could ask for Aperol sans alcool…
This site is pretty good as - you can specify what you have, or what flavour you want to achieve etc…
I found mixers/flavourings by Monin (made in France) very good, found some of them in the bigger supermarkets, but also online. They also have a selection pack of different mixes (i.e. Pina Colada coconut syrup, Blue Curacao etc.)
That site looks most interesting Bettina - thank you!
Just for reference, in case anyone else ends up iin the same positiona s me, I eventually found that the site wisky.fr had cocktail bitters of various sorts so I ordered an Angostura variant from them. It arrived extremely promptly, was brilliantly packed, cost less that Amazon and had free postage. I shall definitely use them again! (Pity I don’t like whisky though, which is what they are mainly about…)
The orange bitters in particular seems to have delivery charges on - I wonder if they aren’t popular here…
