Smoky Bitters — The Crafty Bartender

As a wine sommelier, Mark Coster’s career is based on describing taste with words, from autolytic and vegetal, to buttery and jammy. But the best he ever received about his work may have been in reference to the cocktail bitters he comments. “It’s like making out with Tom Waits,” Josh Lindley, Coster’s friend, once said, referring to the American singer-songwriter’s signature deep voice and growl-like vocals. Coster, a former bartender, began making bitters for friends as gifts. Those eventually made it to some of the city’s top bars and demand began to grow, so he launched Coster’s Prescription Bitters, a small-batch cocktail bitter company. His Coffee and A Smoke bitters were made to “echo whiskey, specifically scotch whisky.” The tobacco smoke acts as a layer of perfume, the coffee as the umami and the sweet note could fill the sugar void in a cocktail. Coster, who is set to launch his own small-batch Canadian whisky “Howitzer” this summer, says the possibilities are end-less for using the coffee and smoke bitters in cocktails, but his drink of choice is an Old Fashioned.

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