About
Bittered Sling® Bitters celebrates the extraordinary life and business partnership of award-winning bartender & sommelier Lauren Mote and celebrated chef Jonathan Chovancek. Together, they’ve contributed more than 40 years of professional experience, knowledge, and innovation to the Canadian and global food and beverage community.
Mote has been making bitters since 2008. The sweetest partnership would launch on February 12, 2012 — where Mote and Chovancek unveiled their Bittered Sling® line up to the world. Bittered Sling® is a retail line of award-winning, high-quality cocktail bitters and culinary extracts using exceptional ingredients providing the palate, plate and potion with a powerful and exciting fusion of flavours.
Since that day — Bittered Sling® quickly built a reputation in the international cocktail and culinary community as a premium, high-quality cocktail bitters, celebrating stories of travel and terroir, utilizing the finest quality ingredients, levels of heritage and craftsmanship from domestic and international purveyors. Bittered Sling®’s expertise in blending flavours and botanicals is showcased perfectly across the 6 global flavour & 6 creative flavour lineups.
Bittered Sling® continues to inspire creativity within the global drinks’ community, providing a sustainable, diverse and delicious product for excited cocktail enthusiasts, backed by two quality stamps of approval — Canada Brand® and BuyLocalBC®.
Bitters – marketed initially as a medicinal tonic – are a concentration of select natural herbs, fruits and spices now used primarily as a flavouring agent for cocktail and culinary creations ranging from savoury to sweet. A common and indispensable tool of any bartender, bitters have increased in popularity thanks to the recent renaissance of classic cocktails.
WHAT’S IN A NAME – BITTERED SLING®
The name Bittered Sling® derives from the May 13, 1806 edition of The Balance and Columbian Repository (Hudson, NY) that defines a cocktail as “A stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters. It is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head.” Each creation offers an intricate range of complex flavours that perfectly accentuates food, spirits, and even sparkling water by the dash.
Since its inception, Bittered Sling® has garnered local and international acclaim, recognized as one of the “top 5 globally trending bitters” in 2021’s annual brand report by Drinks International.
AWARDS
Beverage Testing Institute’s International Review of Spirits (five submissions, five medals)
☆Gold Medal, Bittered Sling® Cascade Celery Bitters
☆Gold Medal, Bittered Sling® Malagasy Chocolate Bitters
☆Gold Medal, Bittered Sling® Kensington Dry Aromatic Bitters
☆Silver Medal, Bittered Sling® Grapefruit & Hops Bitters
☆Silver Medal, Bittered Sling® Plum & Rootbeer Bitters
Supplier & Brand of the Year – Kale & Nori | Bittered Sling®, Vancouver Magazine
Bittered Sling® is a registered trademark of Canada and the United States. Bittered Sling® ships to 55+ countries and is proudly manufactured in British Columbia, Canada.
WHAT MAKES BITTERED SLING® A LEADER IN THE BITTERS CATEGORY?
PROCESS
The Bittered Sling® production process is handmade, small batch production and uses water, Canadian non-GMO grain spirit and botanicals. Before being shipped to our global distributors, the Bittered Sling® product is macerated, naturally filtered, bottled, and labelled in an allergen-free, government-regulated facility in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia.
WATER
Locally sourced and purified glacial waters from British Columbia, Canada
SPIRIT
The base spirit is 100% non-GMO Canadian grain spirit.
BOTANICALS
All botanicals, fruits, barks, and herbs are sourced from Fairtrade suppliers. We only use whole botanicals and do not use essences, extracts, colouring, sugars or sweeteners in our process.
WHY IS ALCOHOL USED IN THE PRODUCTION?
Classical cocktail bitters are made using a natural extraction with an alcohol solvent – this process is as old as alcohol itself. Bittered Sling® only uses water, botanicals and alcohol in their lineup. Bitters that have a “sweet” flavour generally suggest that sugar syrup or caramel are added to mask the taste of low-quality alcohol. Some brands use glycerin (corn by-products) as an alcohol alternative. The Bittered Sling® line is 40% alcohol by volume and registered as a non-potable food product formulation with the Canadian government (think vanilla extract in the baking aisle at the grocery store). The suggested serving for Bittered Sling® is 2 dashes per drink (8-10 ounces of liquid), keeping the alcoholic measurement of Bittered Sling® in the final drink of less than 0.5% abv.
HOW MANY BITTERS ARE IN THE BITTERED SLING® LINE?
Bittered Sling® has 12 expressions*, separated into two portfolios: 6 x global and 6 x creative flavours. The global flavours represent the earliest iterations of Bittered Sling’s primary line. They include Grapefruit & Hops and Lem-Marrakech (citrus), Plum & Rootbeer and Moondog Latin (nostalgic), Malagasy Chocolate and Kensington Dry Aromatic (aromatic). The creative flavours represent the most recent additions to the line and include Orange & Juniper, Cascade Celery, Clingstone Peach, Suius Cherry, Western Haskap and Arabica Coffee. Parts of Canada and the United States may carry some seasonal expressions, like Zingiber Crabapple, Autumn Bog Cranberry, Denman Aromatic & Shanghai Rhubarb, but these are only special releases. Learn more about the flavours.
HOW DOES BITTERED SLING® CHOOSE THEIR EXPRESSIONS?
Lauren and Jonathan are passionate about adding unique expressions to the Bittered Sling® lineup, representing regional flavours & cuisines from Canada and worldwide, brought to life from years of global travel (50+ countries). Lauren’s palate and experience as a bartender & sommelier and Jonathan’s palate as a chef provide a line of bitters designed to work with many spirits, no and low alcohol bases, and give the bartender unlimited creative freedom for their cocktails.
ARE BITTERS SUPPOSED TO BE BITTER?
Bitters are bitter and never sweet. Bitters add the missing ingredient to drinks, adding the vital flavour characteristic to make balanced drinks. The flavour of bitter activates the appetite and aids in digestion, and used for centuries in all cultures frequently for these reasons, before becoming famous in classic cocktails. Today, making drinks with Bittered Sling® is suitable for any occasion – before, during and after a meal.
HOW DO I USE BITTERED SLING®?
Bittered Sling® is administered by the dash, not drop. Be bold! Each bottle of Bittered Sling is 120ml, each dash is 1ml, and each cocktail calls for 2 dashes, making each bottle of Bittered Sling® work beautifully for 60 cocktails. Each dash rounds out flavours – think of it like the salt and pepper for your drinks. The addition of Bittered Sling® brings the simple classic cocktail to the extraordinary, with suitable costing for retail, bars & professional bartenders, and restaurants, with exciting creativity for the home bartender.
HOW LONG DOES A BOTTLE OF BITTERED SLING® LAST, AND WHERE DO I STORE IT?
Bittered Sling® should be stored with your other spirit brands in a cool, dark place out of direct sunlight. Keeping the bitters in the same area as your bottles and bar tools inspires you to pick up the bottle each time you make a cocktail. Each bottle of Bittered Sling® has a 10-year shelf life.
CAN I USE BITTERED SLING® FLAVOURS TOGETHER?
Yes, it’s lovely to mix and match the Bittered Sling® flavours, as they’re all the same strength. For example, to make “Mole Bitters” with a hint of chocolate and chillies, use one dash each of Bittered Sling® Malagasy Chocolate & Bittered Sling® Moondog Latin bitters together. For a citrus and coffee kick to a Rum old-fashioned, use one dash each of Bittered Sling® Orange & Juniper & Bittered Sling® Arabica Coffee bitters together.
WHERE TO BUY
Buy Online
Retail & Wholesale
